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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22456597">defenseless</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeycombkiss/pseuds/honeycombkiss'>honeycombkiss</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>waited just to love you [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aged-Up Characters (16/17 years old), Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beverly Marsh Knows Everything, Bill Denbrough Being an Idiot, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Established Relationship, F/M, Junior Year of High School, M/M, Maggie Tozier is a Good Mother, Mike Hanlon Deserves Nice Things, Mike Hanlon is a Good Friend, Post-IT (2017), Richie Tozier &amp; Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Richie Tozier is Bad at Feelings, Supportive Losers Club (IT), The Losers Club (IT) Love Each Other, Track Star Ben Hanscom, Track Star Eddie Kaspbrak, also semi-stoner Bev and Bill, and i mean that with a lot of love, except nobody moves away or forgets because thats bullshit, semi-stoner Richie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 16:28:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>19,440</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22456597</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeycombkiss/pseuds/honeycombkiss</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Richie pushed his emotions as deep down as he could.<br/>(fear—what if Eddie didn’t need or want a house husband; anger—shouldn’t his boyfriend respect his decision; sadness—leaking throughout his chest; apprehension—he’d wanted to avoid this conversation at all costs)</p><p>/ Or:<br/>As the other Losers prepare to take college entrance exams, Richie aggressively ignores the situation. Unfortunately, Eddie has other plans. He can see Richie’s potential and bright future, but Richie just doesn’t want it. An argument breaks out over their different versions of the future. Is an explosive fight enough to keep the pair apart?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>waited just to love you [12]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1515326</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. just wanna be loved</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic takes place in the spring of 1993, making it the Losers Junior year of high school. They are all 16 and 17.</p><p>Title (and a couple of lines) come from Louis Tomlinson’s song ‘Defenceless’ on his debut album Walls.</p><p>This story is part of a series, and although you do not have to have read the others, I’ve come to realize that a lot of things will make more sense if you have read it. But, in order to save you from 100k words of Reddie and Losers Club antics, here are a couple things to know going into this fic:<br/>1.	Richie is a pizza delivery guy; he gets this job in my fic ‘a pizza your heart’<br/>2.	Bill and Richie play a game called ‘Zap!’. This game comes from Louis Tomlinson and Zayn Malik during the Take Me Home Tour. Here is an excerpt from my fic ‘a pizza your heart’: Sometimes he and Bill played this game. The game didn’t really have a name; sometimes they called it Zap! and other times it was that make-believe different future game.<br/>“Z-z-zap!” Bill said, already putting on what Richie called his ‘creative face’. Bill’s active imagination and affinity for writing and drawing paired with Richie’s overactive hyperactivity and excessive voices made the game always interesting.<br/>3.	Richie has a 1990 red Nissan maxima that he named Staci. He received that car for his sixteenth birthday from Maggie and Went which is detailed in my fic ‘move over, baby, gimme the keys (i’m gonna try to tame your little red love machine)’</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>It’s happening again</em>, Richie thought belated, choosing to roll his entire head instead of his just his eyes this time. He closed his eyes, too, not daring to look over at Eddie. There was a nervous energy in the air that felt palpable.</p><p>“I’ve already told you, Eds,” Richie said again, cutting over Eddie’s ranting. “It’s called being a house husband. I’ll take care of our beautiful home and your lovely ass,”</p><p>It was a conversation that seemed to come up every single time they talked these days. As Eddie and the other Losers prepared to take college entrance exams, Richie avoided the subject like the plague. But it somehow still always came up.</p><p>Eddie’s fists were balled at his sides, anger rolling off him in waves. “You’re selling yourself short, Richie!”</p><p>Richie guffawed. “I’m not selling myself at all!” Which was the exact wrong thing to say, Richie knew, as the words tumbled out of his mouth. Eddie’s body seemed to seethe with anger, his shoulders tensing.</p><p>“Can you take anything seriously, Richie, anything at all?!”</p><p>“I am being serious,” Richie insisted, doing his best to control his voice; he hated arguing with Eddie about this.</p><p>“All you do is make jokes instead of just being serious!” Eddie exploded at the same time Richie continued to say,</p><p>“I’m deadass serious about being a house husband.”</p><p>“You can’t just do that, Richie!” Eddie rose onto the balls of his feet, no doubt attempting to appear taller than he was. It didn’t do much, as Richie towered over him. But it was enough to make Richie uncomfortable, enough to make him want to shrink. So he slumped his shoulders, ruffling his curls. It wasn’t as if he wanted to be this tall, he thought, all the while watching emotions continue to rage against the smooth skin of Eddie’s face.</p><p>“You’re not taking this seriously,” Eddie accused, pointing a finger at Richie. “I can tell, you’re thinking about something else.”</p><p>Resentment flared in Richie’s mind; it wasn’t as if wanted his mind to constantly wander at the most inopportune times. Didn’t Eddie know that by now?</p><p>“It’s not a big deal,” Richie tried, pushing his emotions as deep down as he could.</p><p>(<em>fear—what if Eddie didn’t need or want a house husband; anger—shouldn’t his boyfriend respect his decision; sadness—leaking throughout his chest; apprehension—he’d wanted to avoid this conversation at all costs)</em></p><p>“Oh great,” Eddie sighed. “Now you’re going to try and avoid the truth.”</p><p>“I’ve told you the truth,” Richie groaned lowly. He flopped back onto his bed, covering his eyes with his hands. He’d agreed to help Eddie with physics not argue about the somehow both imminent and distant future. He didn’t care about college, didn’t want to find new ways to be miserable and fail.</p><p>“I have to go,” Eddie’s voice cut through the silence. Richie popped up, watching Eddie gather his textbooks off the desk in Richie’s bedroom, yanking his backpack zipper closed.</p><p>Richie just sat and watched.</p><p>“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Eddie muttered as he walked towards the door. Richie wanted to beg him to come back over, to kiss and makeup. But Eddie was upset. Eddie was defensive</p><p>“Yeah, see ya,” Richie said to Eddie’s retreating form.</p><p>X</p><p>Another day, another argument. This time on the way to Derry High. This time Richie drove, and Eddie sat in the passenger seat beside him. Their fingers had been clasped together against the middle console, until Eddie ripped his away in exasperation.</p><p>“Are you serious, Richie? You really don’t care about your future do you?!”</p><p>Richie wasn’t sure how they’d gotten on the subject at all. Eddie’s cheeks were flushed pink, his hands were gesticulating frantically, and his bright brown eyes were wide and full of uneasiness.</p><p>“Wow, I do not like this conversation,” Richie grumbled, moving his gaze back to the road in front of them.</p><p>“Too bad!”</p><p>“Let’s just drop it until tonight,” Richie pretended to grab a ball of something between them and throw it out the window. “Oh look, there it goes!”</p><p>Richie watched as Eddie clearly tried to stop a smile from crawling up his face. He crossed his arms, ducked his head, glanced out the window, before turning back to Richie with slightly more controlled features.</p><p>“Fine,” he grumbled.</p><p>They were sleeping on their problems, Richie knew. It made his head spin, trying to figure out what to say to Eddie.</p><p>But he’d continue to push everything down until he knew how to solve it. Until then, he’d continue to pretend.</p><p>X</p><p>The Kaspbrak house was silent as Eddie led Richie through the cluttered, dark hallway and up to his bedroom. Mrs. K was out for the afternoon, which meant Richie didn’t have to climb through windows and whisper all of his words into the crook of Eddie’s neck.</p><p>And although that should’ve been enough to lift Richie’s mood, things were still weird from the day before. Their conversations were still stilted. Eddie hadn’t kissed him or wrapped his arms around Richie’s neck, tugging him into the bed with him. Instead, they sat on the edge with textbooks open before them.</p><p>Richie had agreed again to help Eddie study.</p><p>He wasn’t sure how it happened again, only that they were talking about BASIC PHYSICS CONCEPT until suddenly Eddie was pestering again. His voice was quick, words barreling out quicker than he could form them.</p><p>“You have all of this potential,” Eddie started again, gesturing towards a physics test Richie had just gotten back, a happy red <em>A </em>drawn in the top right corner. And Richie was proud of that, was happy that he would achieve those grades so easily. But it was because he had to be in school, had to take the test; not because he wanted to.</p><p>He didn’t want to go to college.</p><p>Even Maggie and Went hadn’t said anything.</p><p>“You’re <em>so </em>smart, Rich,” Eddie stressed. “You could do anything!”</p><p>“But I don’t want to!” Richie finally exclaimed. He rarely raised his voice, and he could see the shock on Eddie’s face. They stared at one another for a moment; nothing passing between them but silence and elongated looks.</p><p>“Maybe we just want different things,” Eddie said, looking down at his shoes.</p><p>Richie didn’t have the first clue what to say. Because the only thing he wanted in life was Eddie. Why couldn’t he see that? College and degrees weren’t just undesirable, they were fucking terrifying. What would Richie possibly study in school? And why was it something he had to decide that afternoon?</p><p>Everything about the future was so murky and unclear. There were roads that led down dark pathways, the ending a mystery.</p><p>And yet, in every conceivable version of his future, the only certainty had ever been Eddie.</p><p>He’d always thought that was something they agreed on.</p><p>“Yeah, maybe,” Richie nodded, because there was too much going on his head. He felt suddenly dizzy, as if the ground was about to open up below him.</p><p>He grabbed for his jacket—the leather one Beverly and Eddie had painted LOVER on, a bright red <em>V</em> covering the white <em>S</em>—shoving his arms through aggressively.</p><p>“What the fuck?” Eddie asked. There was something more in his voice, but Richie ignored it. He didn’t want to think about; didn’t want to know if Eddie was hurt or disappointed or panicking. If he wanted to salvage any remains of his heart he needed to leave.</p><p>So he shoved his feet into his checkered slip-on vans, fished his keys out of his jacket pocket and stormed out of the room.</p><p>X</p><p>
  <em>Day 1 - Friday</em>
</p><p>Bitterness wasn’t Richie’s forte; he didn’t know what to do with it. It was uncomfortable, settling in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t know how to fuel it; how to give it the attention it demanded. Because Eddie sat still at lunch; refusing to look at him. And they didn’t speak to one another in class or in the hallway. When Richie went to Eddie’s locker as he normally did after school; Eddie wasn’t there. When Beverly—Eddie’s locker neighbor—finally showed up, she explained that Ben and Eddie had gone to track practice early.</p><p>And then Richie had rushed off to work; flittering around town with greasy, cheesy pizzas in his car, blaring music that fit his mood. It was all <em>Def Leppard</em> and <em>The Cure</em>.</p><p>And then the day was over; leaving Richie feeling as if he were a character in <em>The Twilight Zone</em>.</p><p>Feeling sort of pointless, sort of meaningless.</p><p>Maybe Eddie was right.</p><p>When he fell into bed that night, his walls came crumbling down. His eyelashes felt wet, the tops of his cheekbones slick no matter how quickly he tried to blink it all away.</p><p>He was always the one to come running back to Eddie, drawn to him like a moth to a flame. Sometimes he wished he didn’t need so much from Eddie; that he didn’t want him more than he really understood.</p><p>He fell asleep that night alone. His bed felt too big, his arms too empty, his heartbeat too quiet.</p><p>X</p><p>
  <em>Day 2 &amp; 3- Saturday and Sunday</em>
</p><p>It was easy to avoid Eddie over the weekend. Eddie was busy practicing most of Saturday and Sundays were <em>mother-and-son-days </em>where Mrs. K kept him locked inside all day like Rapunzel, stuck in a tower of solitude.</p><p>So Richie found himself at Beverly’s. Bill was already there, lucky old Silver in the driveway. Aunt Catherine was watering the sunflowers and dandelions—"<em>fucking weeds” Mrs. K would scowl—</em>a big floppy hat atop her ginger curls.</p><p>“Hey, Cece,” Richie greeted her with the nickname he’d given her years before. She didn’t turn around, though she did wave over her shoulder.</p><p>“Hey, Richie. Bill and Bev are inside. The jar is on the kitchen counter if you want some loud wacky tobacky.”</p><p>“Well thank you, ma’am,” Richie did his best cowboy Voice, before pushing open the chipping yellow-painted door. The smell of weed hit Richie immediately, making his eyes slightly water. They’d have to leave the windows open all night to diffuse the smoke that wafted through the air. For now, that didn’t seem to faze anyone as Richie jammed a hand into his pocket to fish out some cash. He walked past an excited Bev and Bill and into the kitchen, depositing his share into the weed jar.</p><p>“<em>Zap!</em>” Richie spoke in a foreign accent—what kind, he wasn’t honestly sure—pumping his fist in the air and crashing onto the couch between Bill and Bev.</p><p>“Your fucking boney elbows,” Beverly whined, while Bill pitched his idea for their make-believe-future-game,</p><p>“We’re at a fra-fra-fraternity party in cuh-college,”</p><p>Richie closed his eyes to picture the scene: bodies everywhere, music blasting louder than what Bev currently had her stereo at, Richie’s already a couple beers in, and</p><p>He had to aggressively shut his mind off that path, no matter how badly he wanted to picture Eddie sitting his lap, sweat beading at his forehead, drink in hand, hickey’s littering his neck.</p><p>Eddie wasn’t talking to him at the moment.</p><p>Richie had always imagined that he and Eddie were soulmates in any universe. A horrible feeling in his gut wanted to question that truth now.</p><p>“Totally tubular,” Richie made a hang loose signal with his hand, using his best surfer dude Voice.</p><p>“A surfer fraternity?” Beverly raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“Totally dude,” Richie continued.</p><p>“Whoa, d-dude,” Bill joined in, though he sounded ridiculous. His red-tinted hair lay against his head, wisps falling against his forehead. His eyes were red and glossy, but he was smiling. “What a ki-ki-killer party!”</p><p>Richie laughed, rolling his shoulders forward in an attempt to feel loose, “I heard the host is kind of a bitch though,”</p><p>Beverly made a shocked noise, “Says the guy currently in a bitchy, catty fight with his boyfriend.”</p><p>Suddenly, the air felt sucked out of his lungs. Beverly was giving him a challenging look, and Bill was awkwardly looking into his lap. Richie wished he were even half as high as his friends currently were. He’d come to Bev’s to stop thinking of Eddie, not to be faced with the reminders of what was going on around him.</p><p>(Like how guilty he felt for not just <em>talking</em>. Or at least just saying what Eddie wanted to hear, even if he didn’t mean it. How his pride kept him from just making peace.</p><p>Or how much he <em>missed</em> Eddie. His laugh. His cute nose scrunch he did whenever Richie kissed it.)</p><p>“Are you going to share the blunt or not?” Richie chose to say. “What’s a guy gotta do to get a fucking hit?”</p><p>Beverly’s features were still set in what Richie approximated to be, <em>please be honest with yourself, Richie</em>.</p><p>“Come on, luf,” Richie slurred in his British Guy. “Miss Scawlett, I’m beggin’ yuh,”</p><p>She rolled her eyes, though she did pass him the blunt. He grabbed it gratefully, fingers brushing Beverly’s much softer ones. As the blunt touched his chapped lips, he heaved in a deep breath, inhaling the smoke until it settled in his lungs. It was instantly comforting. When Beverly attempted to take the blunt back, Richie leaned away from her to take another drag. When he blew the smoke back out, he watched it swirl above his head and join the layers of smoke that had already settled in the room.</p><p>“You sh-sh-sh,”</p><p>“You should talk to him,” Bev cut off Bill to say, as if they’d both agreed to say it before Richie had even shown up.</p><p>“Oh em gee,” Richie’s falsetto Voice broke through the silence. “You two cuties really didn’t have to spend your whole night gossiping about lil ole me,”</p><p>“Fuck off,” Beverly reached for the blunt again, this time she was successful. “And fuck you, too fucking bad if we care about you and Eddie.”</p><p>“Yuh-yeah,” Bill nodded, holding his own blunt between two fingers. Bill was a fingernail biter, and his fingers looked especially torn up, hangnails and bloody skin.</p><p>“So I say again,” Beverly blew smoke towards Richie. “You should talk to him.”</p><p>“Like suh-soon,” Bill added. “You kn-know how Eddie is, so you d-d-don’t wanna f-f-fuck it up-p,”</p><p>Richie’s stomach swirled as he closed his eyes against Bill’s insistence, and the truth behind his statement.</p><p>(Because wasn’t it all true, anyway? Shouldn’t he be at Eddie’s house, not getting high in Beverly’s living room?)</p><p>“Muh-maybe tomorrow,” Bill added, voice somehow both soft and firm. “B-be-before he’s too up-upset.”</p><p>Richie didn’t mean to show how much Bill’s words affected him. But he couldn’t help another wince.</p><p>“Lay off, Bill,” Beverly spoke up, a note of finality in her voice. As if she hadn’t started this, too.</p><p>“It’s okay,” Richie sighed at the same time Bill stuttered out,</p><p>“Suh-sorry, Ruh-richie,”</p><p>“I get it,” Richie sighed again, still feeling much too sober for the current conversation. “Also, fucking share,” he reached into Bill’s space. And Bill, who was not usually interested in sharing, easily gave the blunt up. More proof that things were too serious for Richie’s comfort.</p><p> </p><p>The trio smoked, sang to music and tried another round of <em>Zap!</em>. Until Aunt Catherine poked her head into the living room, a sing-song tone to her voice.</p><p>“You guys staying for dinner?” It took Richie several seconds to register exactly what she was asking, his mind slow and hazy. He was suddenly aware of how much he’d smoked. He couldn’t face Maggie and Went right away; couldn’t drive to the other side of town.</p><p>“Please,” Richie coughed out, winking at Bev when she laughed at him.</p><p>“Bill?” Aunt Catherine asked. Bill bit his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth. “Come on, you can’t have anything <em>that</em> important going on tonight.”</p><p>“Cece, this is why I love you,” Richie laughed. “Come on, Bill, let yourself be seduced by Cece’s delicious frozen lasagna.” Aunt Catherine laughed.</p><p>“Richie’s my favorite again,” Aunt Catherine told Beverly.</p><p>“Again?!” Richie shrieked. “Who stole my crowning glory in your heart?!”</p><p>“Ben,” Beverly and Aunt Catherine answered together.</p><p>“Figures,” Richie shrugged. “He’s gonna be my new favorite, too.”</p><p>Aunt Catherine looked surprised. “Oh? You’re not going to wax poetic about Eddie over dinner?” Beverly laughed at that, but it was gentler than normal.</p><p>“Why would I do that, m’lady,” Richie jumped into a Voice to avoid the way his voice wobbled even in his own head “when you’re across the table from me?”</p><p>Aunt Catherine laughed, though she kept shooting Beverly looks of confusion. “You flatter me,” she turned back to Bill, “So what is it?”</p><p>“I’ll st-st-stay,” Bill smiled.</p><p>Aunt Catherine smile back as she turned to disappear back into the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “It’ll be ten minutes or so,”</p><p>Richie turned on Beverly as soon as his mind had processed the previous conversation enough to form words. “I don’t wax poetic about Eddie,” it sounded accusatory, as if Beverly had done this specifically to him.</p><p>“You kinda do,” Beverly shrugged. “It’s sweet. I’ve always liked it.”</p><p>“It is suh-sweet,” Bill agreed.</p><p>Richie rolled his eyes, unsure if he wanted to address how that made his chest feel cavernous.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m j-j-just worried,” Bill murmured as the three curled up on the futon in the living room. The extra blanket that Aunt Catherine had tossed at Richie was scratchy on his skin, but he pulled it up closer. He was facing the profile of Bill’s face, his nose a block obscuring his view of Beverly. She and Richie lay like parenthesis around Bill, who lay on his back, eyelashes fluttering as he gazed up at the ceiling fan that whirled around crookedly. Bill looked pensive, an image of melancholy bitterness against his normally soft features.</p><p>They were high, he reminded himself, like a mantra that he had to continuously chant. <em>I’m just high; Bill’s just high; and somehow Beverly’s just all-knowing.</em></p><p>The living room and kitchen windows were all cracked open, airing out the smoke they’d filled it with. He focused on the sounds from outside: the crickets, the whistling wind, the sound of Bev’s neighbor’s dog. He had forgotten that Bill had spoken at all until he repeated himself,</p><p>“I’m wuh-worried,” Bill said, and Richie chose to ignore the sniffle that came from Bill.</p><p>“Eddie’s just being ridiculous,” Richie croaked, coughing to hide the emotion leaking into his own voice.</p><p>
  <em>(I’m just high)</em>
</p><p>“M-m-may-maybe,” Bill shrugged, jostling the bed. Neither Bev nor Richie said anything.</p><p>Richie reached underneath the blanket, fingers tracing the feeling of the sheets and his threadbare pajama pants. Richie had enough sleepovers at Beverly’s to have left a little stash of pajamas that he and Bill were currently wearing. Beverly was also dressed in Richie’s pajamas, but they were a pair from at least sophomore year. Richie had outgrown them forever ago, and so Beverly had staked her claim.</p><p>Eddie had, too. There were many, many items of Richie’s old clothing in Eddie’s closet.</p><p>He smiled at the thought.</p><p>“Maybe I should call Eddie tonight,”</p><p>Beverly shook her head quickly, lifting her head enough to toss a glare at Richie. “That’s a horrible idea, Richie!”</p><p>“Do it!” Bill sat up a bit too, eyes boring into Richie’s. “I want th-this t-t-to end,”</p><p>Beverly pushed at Bill’s shoulder until he was laying down again.</p><p>“You’re like <em>so</em> high right now, Richie,” Beverly chided, but her voice still had that gentle edge to it that it had all night. Which wasn’t to say that Beverly was usually harsh and tough, but that she was being a little <em>too</em> soft; a little <em>too </em>gentle. “I think you should wait,”</p><p>“I duh-don’t,” Bill challenged, though his voice was so earnest it was contagious.</p><p>There was a friendly tension in the air, a <em>will-he-won’t-he</em> kind of mystery between Bill and Bev’s glances. Richie cleared his throat.</p><p>“How’s a good father supposed to choose between his children?” Beverly rolled her eyes, though Bill laughed.</p><p>“If y-you’re a guh-good fuh-father you’d ca-call your hus-b-b-band,”</p><p>The words tumbled from Bill’s lips, but all it did was make the entire scene feel too serious. It was like the air was sucked out of Richie’s lungs and the cold night breeze drafting through the windows froze the tip of his tongue. There wasn’t anything to say now. Beverly was right, he was too high for this.</p><p>(<em>Maybe Eddie was right; Richie didn’t know when to stop, when to take things seriously.)</em></p><p>“I think I’m a little tuckered out for the evenin’,” Richie said, flopping onto his back, shoulder brushing Bill’s.</p><p>“Me too,” Beverly added, allowing Richie the pretense of his cover up.</p><p>No one else said a word. Bill sighed deeply. Beverly stretched her arms high above her head, fingers pointed to the ceiling. Richie stayed perfectly still.</p><p>Bev’s radio played, filling the silence of the room until the trio fell to sleep.</p><p>Richie sung the words to each song in his head, tugging his blanket up to his chin. It was hard to fall asleep when his mind wouldn’t stop for even a moment. Bill snored lightly beside him, a sort of accompaniment to the music. Beverly moved a lot; rolling from her side to her back and then onto her stomach, arm stuffed underneath her pillow. Richie focused on that, and not the growing panic in his chest.</p><p>X</p><p>
  <em>Day 4 - Monday</em>
</p><p>Richie awoke before his alarm to the rumble of thunder. It was disorienting at first, his room shrouded in complete and utter darkness. He blinked slowly, but nothing came into focus. As another round of thunder roared, Richie tried to gather his bearings, tried to understand what exactly was going on.</p><p>Without the moonlight streaming through, his room was eerily dark. Gloomy. He blinked his eyes slowly, rolling onto his back in his large bed.</p><p> </p><p>Richie’s patience was thin before the day had even begun. He dropped his bottle of conditioner on his foot in the shower. He burned the roof of his mouth on the sausage he’d made for breakfast. He accidently stepped into a large fucking puddle on the way to <em>Staci</em>. His wipers didn’t go fast enough to keep up with the giant raindrops that splattered across his windshield.</p><p>So, the day started off shitty. It should’ve been a sign that things wouldn’t get any better.</p><p> </p><p>Derry High’s cafeteria was bustling, full of hungry students. Richie dodged his clumsy peers, danced around those who didn’t pay attention, and skirted the edge of the cafeteria until he arrived at their claimed lunch table. Bill and Eddie were already seated, soft conversation passing between the two.</p><p>(<em>Was Bill working his guilt-inducing powers on Eddie now? Could he make Eddie weak enough to try and call Richie while high?</em>)</p><p>“Good afternoon, Billiam,” Richie spoke formally, lazily thrusting out a hand to shake Bill’s. But Bill just turned his big, stormy eyes onto Richie, and with a wince and a slump of his shoulders he spoke,</p><p>“Eddie duh-d-doesn’t wanna sit with yuh-you,” Bill stuttered, some sounds sliding together as they often did. “Y-y-you have to guh-g-go sit over th-there,” Bill pointed to where Beverly had already thrown her lunch tray down, hair pulled away from her face in large, black clips.</p><p>Richie watched as Ben slid into the sit beside her, with Stan not too far behind. Now that Ben and Bev were finally together, they were kind of a package deal. Where Beverly was, Ben wasn’t too far behind. Which wasn’t anything new. But it was disgustingly sweet—made Richie happy enough to vomit—that Beverly usually wasn’t too far behind Ben, either.</p><p>“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me?” Richie whipped back around to fix Bill with a look. He almost wanted to laugh at how ridiculous the entire situation was becoming. “Did you make a fucking seating chart?”</p><p>“Kuh-kinda,” Bill shrugged, having the nerve to look somewhat sheepish.</p><p>Richie’s mind was a whirlwind. What happened to Bill’s insistence to fix every problem the second it aroused? What had Eddie said to make Bill completely change his mind?</p><p>Eddie still hadn’t looked up. Instead, he had a look of annoyance plastered to his face, eyes downcast at the food in front of him. Richie kind of wanted to push at the back of his head until they were forced to make eye contact. He also sort of wanted to run as far from the table as he possibly could.</p><p>“So Eds gets you in the divorce?” Richie turned to fix Bill with a look.</p><p>“No, it’s joint custody,” Mike answered, sliding into the seat on Eddie’s other side. “The lawyer split up our days between you two,”</p><p>“And which one of you Losers is the lawyer?” Richie asked, suddenly grabbing at the napkin on his lunch tray to dab at his eyes dramatically. It all felt like a dumb soap opera, so he’d play the part; sad, inconsolable, lonely ex-wife who got gypped in the divorce. “And where’s the judge?! My demands were not met! I wanted at least fifty percent!”</p><p>“You got more than that today,” Mike shrugged. “Three to two,” he gestured to the other table and then back to the one Eddie was occupying.</p><p>“Juh-just go-go ov-er there,” Bill stumbled over his words, wincing slightly. When emotions were high, Bill’s stutter intensified. Which was all the confirmation Richie didn’t need.</p><p>“Try not to pop one when you watch me walk away,” Richie shrilled again, spinning on his heel with as much dramatics as he could muster.</p><p>Ignoring both Beverly and Ben’s calls at him, he shimmied his way through the cafeteria. At the exit doors he dumped the uneaten food on his tray into the trashcan and slid out of the cafeteria, suddenly having no appetite.</p><p>He tried not to think about the increasingly dark thoughts that were swirling through his mind.</p><p>(Like the fact that he’d sat next to Eddie at lunch nearly every single day since the second grade. And they’d almost always sat right beside the other. Their elementary school antics of kicking one another in annoyance and mirth had turned into games of footsie in high school. They’d hidden clasped hands, swapped food, laughed at one another’s jokes. And although there were many, many times they’d broken that streak due to Eddie’s many supposed illnesses, it had never been by choice.)</p><p>Richie hadn’t made it far when the sound of footsteps grew louder and louder. He heard his name as Stan called down the hallway, but Richie ignored him, choosing to push through a pair of side doors that led to the blacktop behind the school. He heaved a gasp of fresh air, pushing away the tears that threatened to fall. He sniffled to himself, rummaging around in the deep pockets of the brown camo pants he was wearing. He pulled out a cigarette and a lighter he’d picked up the day before.</p><p>“Richie,” he listened as Stan exited the school, and walked towards him. When Richie looked up, he met eyes with a frowning Stan, his leather bookbag swaying against his side. Richie delicately pushed the cigarette between his lips, finger fumbling against the lighter.</p><p>“Finally,” Richie put on the Voice he’d given Bill earlier, lighting his cigarette behind a cupped hand. “Are you my lawyer, Mr. Gentleman-sir?”</p><p>“Cut it out,” Stan huffed, folding his arms across his chest. Richie refused to give him his full attention, choosing instead to take a deep drag of his cigarette. He tilted his head back, resting against the brick of the school building to blow the smoke up towards the sky.</p><p>The dark clouds from that morning hadn’t gone anywhere. If anything, they were more menacing. The blacktop was shiny and wet from the rain that had pounded against it only an hour or so before. Richie could feel in the air that more rain would be falling soon. There was lightning in the distance, far enough that Richie wondered if the Hanlon farm could see it, too.</p><p>“Earth to Richie,” there was a poke against his arm, and he turned his attention to Stan. He hadn’t meant to get distracted. But the look that was swimming in Stan’s iris’ was unpleasant.</p><p>It was sad.</p><p>Richie looked away.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Stan started, leaning closer into Richie’s space, “about the breakup.”</p><p>“It’s not a fucking break up,” Richie whined, doing his best to not look at Stan. He didn’t want to see that classic Stan look; the one mixed with pity and judgement. “You have to like say <em>this is a breakup</em>,” Richie put on a mocking Voice—mocking of who or what he wasn’t sure, though.</p><p>“That’s not true,” Stan shook his head.</p><p>“It is, too!” Richie took another drag, tempted to blow the smoke right into Stan’s face. He barely stopped himself.</p><p>“Whatever, believe what you will.”</p><p>“I will.” Richie nodded.</p><p>“Okay,”</p><p>Silence enveloped the pair.</p><p>Richie didn’t have anything else to say. He didn’t want to argue about it with Stan. He hardly wanted to even <em>think </em>about it.</p><p>“If you really don’t think so-”</p><p>Richie cut off Stan’s new words, not wanting to hear it. “I get it, Stanley.”</p><p>“For gods sake, Richie, I’m trying to tell you that it’s probably not a big deal! You know Eddie, he’s probably just upset. And if Bill’s involved, then it’s being blown completely out of proportion. So yeah, if you don’t think it’s a breakup, it probably isn’t.”</p><p>Stan shuffled closer until the entire side of his body was pressed flush against Richie’s own body. It was warm, somehow comforting to be so close to someone.</p><p>Stan’s arms hung lamely at his sides, fingers playing with the hem of his jacket, knuckles brushing against Richie’s hip. Richie was grateful that Stan didn’t try to fill the silence with words that were too heavy. So while Richie was a self-proclaimed Trashmouth, he could also hate the feeling of worry and isolation that had come from the conversation Stan had tried to push.</p><p>Richie inhaled deeply, nicotine-flavored smoke warming his lungs.</p><p>Stan tipped his head, placing his head against Richie’s shoulder. His curls itched the side of Richie’s neck, the collar of his jacket creating a swishing sound where it rubbed against Richie’s beloved bomber jacket.</p><p>There wasn’t anything Richie wanted to say, but the silence was suddenly full of words too heavy. Words like <em>I’m-so-sorry-Richie</em> and <em>I’ll-comfort-you-through-whatever-the-fuck-this-pain-is.</em> Richie’s throat closed up around his next drag, and so he masked the oncoming cough and tears with an enthusiastic,</p><p>“Wonderful weather we’re having out here today,” Richie pitched his voice, imitating a newscast weatherman. “Except for the part where it’s raining cats and dogs. Not men, sorry Weather Girls,”</p><p>Stan snorted.</p><p>“As you can clearly see, the day calls for rain. And a fucking lot of it, too.” Richie reached a hand out. “When my funny bone starts doing the conga line, I know it’s about to fucking dump.”</p><p>Stan gave a surprised sound of joy; not quite a laugh, but too fond to be another snort.</p><p>Fat drops of rain splotched against the blacktop. Stan whined, tugging at the ends of his curls subconsciously. Richie knew he’d be left alone to his thoughts and his misery if the rain continued on. Stan would rush inside to keep dry, and Richie would stand beneath the covered doorway and smoke his third cigarette.</p><p>(<em>Maybe Eddie was right; Richie was too good at avoiding the truth.)</em></p><p>X</p><p>
  <em>Day 5 - Tuesday</em>
</p><p>Lunch period had only begun five minutes earlier, and Richie was already positive that it was going to be rough again. Eddie was nowhere in sight. At the Losers lunch table Stan and Bill sat side-by-side, identical looks of barely contained concern across their features. But neither appeared to be willing to settle the argument that was growing explosive.</p><p>"I already told you, Stan, it's not a fucking break up!" Richie ran his fingers through his hair, adjusting his glasses aggressively. He refused to look at the other three occupants at the table; he’d find determination in Stan, barely concealed concern in Bill and soft compassion in Mike.</p><p>"Okay, sure, I believed you,” Stan said, his shoulders squared. “But I’m not sure now. If it's not a breakup, then how come you haven't slept over at his house this week? And why won't you eat lunch together? And how come Eddie won't even look at you?"</p><p>"Yuh-yeah, Richie, t-tell us that." Bill nodded.</p><p>“Um, for one, fuck the fuck off,” Richie exploded, his anger rising. “Two, it’s not my fault we haven’t eaten lunch. Eddie’s bodyguards have kept us apart.”</p><p>“To pro-pro-protect you both,” Bill defended.</p><p>“Because of the breakup,” Stan pressed.</p><p>"It's NOT a breakup!" Richie exclaimed, rising from his seat. He dislodged his chair in the process, watching in shock as the chair flipped onto its side, clattering onto the floor.</p><p>"If it's not a breakup, then why'd you just flip that chair?" Stan raised his eyebrows. "Case in point."</p><p>“Stan, I think that’s enough,” Mike’s voice broke through the layer of emotion that had enveloped their table. His voice was loud but soft, glancing between Richie and Stan. Richie could feel his chest rising and falling quickly. Stan looked both determined and apologetic.</p><p>Silence followed in the wake of the argument. While Bill and Mike exchanged looks of apprehension, neither Stan nor Richie said another word. Richie knew if he opened his mouth, he’d say something he wouldn’t be able to take back. Instead, he busied himself with picking his chair back up and shoving several fries into his mouth.</p><p>"Wuh-what's that f-f-face, Mike?" Bill asked after a moment of awkward silence.</p><p>"I'm just worried the bands breaking up," Mike lamented over a bite of cafeteria mac-n-cheese.</p><p>Richie glanced away and out across the lunchroom, eyes landing on Bev, Ben and Eddie. They were shoved onto a tiny table in the corner. So tiny in fact that Bev was perched on a blushing Ben’s lap. Richie momentarily forgot about the entire mess, laughing to himself at Ben’s obvious excitement and discomfort.</p><p><em>Look at Ben</em>, he wanted to say, but when he turned his attention back to the table he was currently occupying, he was met with Bill and Mike’s saddened eyes. Even Stan looked forlorn.</p><p>It made his skin itchy. His throat, too.</p><p>“I didn’t mean to upset anyone, war stories can get kind of intense sometimes, that’s why I always pour a glass of whiskey before I remember the good ole days,” Richie pretended to rub a nonexistent beard, scrunching his face to make wrinkles.</p><p>“Oh for god’s sake,” Stan whined, turning his attention away from Richie. Bill laughed, but Mike’s glance was piercing, all-knowing.</p><p>(<em>Maybe Eddie was right; Richie wanted to hide behind humor. It was much safer and easier to tell a joke than it was to share your true emotions.)</em></p><p>
  
</p><p>That night, Stan showed up at his doorstep at seven o’clock on the dot. Richie was surprised—Stan was a man of proper procedure and this visit had not been on the schedule—but he couldn’t help the smile that grew across his face. It was nice to not be alone.</p><p>“Stan my man,” Richie greeted him happily, pulling open the door enough to let Stan inside. He was holding a blue umbrella, shaking it off on the porch before pulling it closed and slipping off his shoes in the Tozier’s parlor.</p><p>Stan made a face, before he deadpanned, “It sure is a wet one, just like Eddie’s mom.”</p><p>Richie’s eyes widened, his features settling into a look of shock. There was a glimmer of mirth in Stan’s eyes, and a laugh just brushing at his lips.</p><p>“What the fuck?” Richie finally burst into laughter, unable to keep it back. It was all the permission Stan needed to laugh himself; loud, boisterous noises that echoed off the walls. “Stanverly gets off a good one! I gotta give credit where credit is due; that sounded like something I’d say.”</p><p>“It sounded like something I’d say, because I said it,” Stan effused, breaking into another fit of laughter, just as hard as before. Sometimes it seemed like Stan’s favorite comedian was himself; he always laughed at his own jokes.</p><p> </p><p>They don’t talk about <em>it.</em></p><p>(About the Eddie sized hole in Richie’s heart.</p><p>Or the semantics of a breakup.</p><p>Or who’s fault the entire thing is.)</p><p>They argue over the music and what pizza to order. Because Richie knew that pineapple on pizza was one of humankind’s greatest inventions, although Stan always argued the opposite. Stan criticized Richie’s music choice but made no move to change the cassettes.</p><p> </p><p>Finally, as they prepared to go to bed, Stan said what Richie knew he was been waiting to say, “It sucks, y’know with Eddie,” he paused, as if the words were struggling to come out. “I’m sorry,”</p><p>Stan was sitting there on Richie’s bed, curls gently laying against his forehead and his voice soft, almost like a caress against Richie’s skin. They weren’t touching, but soon they’d tumble into Richie’s bed and fall asleep. Soon, they’d be pressed against one another hips and shoulders and toes. And it would feel exactly as this does now.</p><p>Richie smiled easily, sitting still for a moment to properly bask in Stan’s friendship; one that is so old and so fundamental to Richie’s world. He wouldn’t want it any other way.</p><p>He told Stan that he loves him, only it came out, “Yeah, me too, thanks Stanny,” kind of jumbled together, kind of wet, but mostly happy.</p><p>“He’ll come around,” Stan said again, this time his words sounding surer. “And if not, I’ll go slap some sense into him.”</p><p>Richie laughed, picturing a fist fight between Stan and Eddie. They’d probably end up punching themselves on accident, laying in the grass and moaning about the pain. It’d be funny to see. Even if Richie hated seeing the ones he loved in pain; if it was self-induced it was okay to laugh at.</p><p>“He’d win,” Richie said, just to rile Stan up.</p><p>“Fine, whatever, see if I ever try to be nice and help you again,” Stan crossed his arms against his chest, raising his chin pointedly away from Richie.</p><p>“No, Stanny, light out of my life!”</p><p>“Well, that’s a fucking lie. I’ve suffered through enough years of you and Eddie flirting to know that’s not the truth.” Stan leaned away when Richie tried to flop into Stan’s space.</p><p>“Shoot me, I’m a man in love,” Richie said in a cowboy Voice, tipping an imaginary hat towards Stan.</p><p>And while Stan didn’t shoot Richie, he did smack him with a pillow. The loud <em>thwak</em> echoed in the room, sending them both into raucous giggles. Richie didn’t hesitate before retaliating, landing his blow against Stan’s head.</p><p>“Hey! No head shots!” Stan insisted.</p><p>“This is my town,” Richie continued in the cowboy Voice. “And there ain’t enough room for the two of us,”</p><p>“You’re ridiculous!” Stan exclaimed, though he was smiling as he smacked Richie with another pillow. Stan couldn’t stay mad at Richie for long. Richie knew this; it was hard not to constantly use it to his advantage.</p><p>Stan’s face held a large grin, and it was nice to see him so happy and carefree. It was nice to have company, too. Especially company that knew how to have a good pillow fight. It was easy to feel happy like this. He suspected that was Stan’s wicked plan all along. Richie hadn’t moped in hours.</p><p>X</p><p>
  <em>Day 6 - Wednesday</em>
</p><p>The weather hadn’t improved in days. Big, fat raindrops splattered against his bedroom window, providing a backing track for the music playing from his stereo system. As he lay in bed after school, tossing his head back and forth against his pillow. His mind was full of heavy thoughts, but he let them drip like raindrops, accumulating at the bottom of his mind until it flooded. If everything flooded, he wouldn’t have to focus on just one particular thought. Maybe they’d accumulate enough that he could just cry them all out.</p><p>His personal phone sat on the nightstand, scratches in the plastic catching his attention. How many times had he knocked it onto the ground? How many times had he mindlessly called the only person he currently wanted to talk to; the first person he always wanted to talk to. The Kaspbrak’s number was familiar, he could dial it in his sleep. His hand twitched—a million words just on the tip of his tongue.</p><p>Instead, he jumped from his bed before his hands could grab the phone. He didn’t think, he just flung on his purple bomber jacket—the one with the stuck zipper and chocolate milk stain that he loved a little too much since it was a gift from Eddie—and stomped through the house. He ignored Maggie’s calls from the kitchen, slinging the house door shut behind him and wandering out into the pouring rain.</p><p>He lifted an arm over his head, as if it could protect himself from the onslaught of raindrops. It barely blocked his glasses, though it felt like a giant win. Driving with smudged glasses was slightly harder than he ever imagined it would be.</p><p> </p><p>It was a bit of a drive up to the Hanlon farm. Richie attempted to blast music loud enough to drown out his thoughts; but it just didn’t work. Ten minutes was a long time to be alone with one’s thoughts.</p><p>But singing loudly and counting to one hundred every time his mind wandered sort of helped.</p><p>Unfortunately, the walk from his car to the Hanlon’s front door was muddy. His yellow converse were drenched, murky water leaking in and soaking his socks. Luckily, Mike answered the door after the third knock.</p><p>Richie shucked off his jacket, hanging it on the old, rusting coat hanger in the Hanlon’s parlor. He kicked off his chucks and followed Mike through the wallpaper-covered hallway and into the kitchen.</p><p>The Hanlon’s kitchen was bright, even in the thunderstorm. Inside, Richie was greeted by Mike’s grandmother, Esther Hanlon. Esther was old and her memory wasn’t great—she often mixed Richie up for either Bill or Stan—but she was kind. It was no wonder where Mike got his gentleness and tenderheartedness from. She offered to make Richie a cup of tea, and before Richie could answer she’d already gotten started. The frilly and lacey apron she wore was a happy yellow, cheering up the room. It matched the walls of the kitchen, and the teapot she was filling with water.</p><p>Mike sat at the kitchen table, playing with the fraying ends of the red and white gingham tablecloth. He smiled at Richie and gestured for him to come and take a seat across from him. Richie pulled out a wooden chair and slumped down into it. He felt as young as he always did at Mike’s; as if the day he’d first entered it was the way he’d always be inside it.</p><p>He felt tired, too. But that wasn’t the Hanlon kitchens fault.</p><p>Mike and Richie exchanged small talk,</p><p>
  <em>“How’d your homework go?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Super! Thanks for asking, Mommy,”</em>
</p><p>until Esther deposited the steaming cup of tea in front of Richie.</p><p>“Help yourself, Bill,” Mike’s grandmother gestured towards the large bowl of fruit that sat in the center of the table. Richie didn’t know how to deal with little old kind ladies, so he just smiled and spit out a,</p><p>“Yeah, okay, thank you,” hoping he sounded even partially as genuine as she did.</p><p>She left the room then, insisting that it was already past her bedtime, reminding Mike to get to bed soon and to finish his homework and to please remember to milk the cows in the morning. Mike hugged her and kissed her goodnight on the cheek. It must’ve been proof of how awful Richie felt when he didn’t even tease Mike.</p><p>Mike settled back into the table, asking Richie more questions. Richie didn’t mean to start talking about Eddie; but his pretty features and warm smile and soft hipbones were all Richie could think about. He was never far from his thoughts, a constant north star in Richie’s life.</p><p>“He’s ignoring me,” Richie said when their conversation about something Richie really wasn’t paying attention to ended. He didn’t specify who he was talking about, but Mike seemed to understand.</p><p>“I think he wants you to know he’s serious,” Mike’s voice was gentle, holding a kind of tenderness Richie wanted to pick up and throw away.</p><p>“Did he tell you that?”</p><p>Mike’s look of guilt was enough of an answer. “Fuck that,” Richie felt his anger rising for the first time in days. He hated feeling angry; it was a sort of foreign emotion. He preferred to make jokes and laugh with his friends. He didn’t want this animosity and festering bitterness. He wanted to hug Eddie to his body and fall asleep like that. He hadn’t willingly spent this many nights apart from Eddie since they’d started dating.</p><p>“Richie,” Mike started again, voice ever compassionate. Richie was both grateful and slightly annoyed. “This is a big deal to Eddie.”</p><p>“Then he should come and tell me that instead of hiding behind you Losers.”</p><p>Mike shrugged, though he did nod his head slightly. “Yeah, maybe, but he hasn’t.”</p><p>“Yeah I’m aware,” Richie rolled his eyes, and slumped farther into his seat. “This is so fucked up.”</p><p>“It doesn’t have to be,” Mike insisted. “You just need to go over there and tell him how you feel.”</p><p>“Fuck that,” Richie grumbled again, flicking his curls out of his eyes. “He knows how I feel.”</p><p>Mike shrugged again, looking like he wanted to do something, but wasn’t sure what. Richie knew the feeling.</p><p>“What am I supposed to do?” Richie asked, honestly rhetorical.</p><p>“I just fucking,” Mike paused to sigh and pinch the bridge of his nose. Mike was a large man—the quarterback of the varsity football team, dutiful farmer, dedicated vegetarian and yet somehow the gentlest person Richie had ever met. So while his biceps bulged, his shoulders were slumped and his heart was on his sleeve; that’s just how Mike always was. Richie had come to rely on that. “I just fucking told you, Rich.”</p><p>Richie sighed and turned away. This wasn’t going to go anywhere, he thought. While he wanted an easier answer, Mike was settled on the one he’d given. There wasn’t much he could do to sway his mind.</p><p>The pair sat in silence as Mike stood up, walking Richie’s empty cup to the kitchen sink. Richie’s gaze wandered, drifting from the frilly window curtains and many farm animal trinkets that littered the kitchen. There were the cow salt and pepper shakers and the pig cookie jar. Mike opened the porcelain cookie jar and pulled out a couple of oatmeal raisin cookies, bringing them to the table to share with Richie.</p><p>“God, Mikey, couldn’t you have made a real cookie?”</p><p>“These are my grandma’s favorites,” Mike chuckled.</p><p>“Fuck, and to think I really liked her,”</p><p>Mike laughed again. Richie ate a cookie anyway. It felt easier than talking. But there was something about Mike’s calm presence that made Richie feel loose lipped.</p><p>“You should just call Eddie and tell him that I’m sorry and that I want things to go back to normal,” Richie finally said.</p><p>Mike glanced over at him, a sad sort of smile against his lips. “Is that really what you want?”</p><p>Richie threw his head down into the crook of his arms folded atop the table. From there, he called out a muffled, “I don’t fucking know anymore, I don’t think I know anything anymore,”</p><p>He could hear Eddie in his head—<em>“Are you serious, Richie? You really don’t care about your future do you?!”</em>—though it made him more sad than he wanted to admit.</p><p>So he didn’t.</p><p>Instead, he laid his head on the table and listened to the sound of Mike stand and begin sweeping the kitchen floor. The soft swooshes and scratches filled the kitchen, only interrupted by Mike’s friendly question,</p><p>“You staying over, Richie?”</p><p>“I’m okay,” Richie rose his head and pushed up, palms flat against the table as he stood.</p><p>Richie shuffled around Mike and towards the exit of the kitchen. Mike followed Richie back down the hall and to the door. Neither said a word and Richie felt like it was a sick pattern that hadn’t existed before this week. It had never been hard or awkward to talk to the other Losers. Mike was easy and always chuckled at Richie’s jokes. But Richie’s mind was so full, he wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say; not sure why he even came over at all; he should’ve known what his mind was full of, that his thoughts were disorganized and scattered.</p><p>“Goodnight, Richie,” Mike said when they reached the door. He pulled it open, the wooden welcome sign banging back and forth against the door with the force of it all.</p><p>“My oh my,” Richie placed a hand to his heart, pretending to swoon. “What a gentleman you are!”</p><p>Mike chuckled and added an eyeroll; just like he always did. It made something in Richie settle a little bit. A little. Until he waved goodbye, started up <em>Staci</em> and went home to be so lonely.</p><p>X</p><p>
  <em>Day 7 - Thursday</em>
</p><p>Richie doesn’t sleep well. He wanted something to blame—the thunderstorms, the stress, his overactive mind, the not-breakup breakup—but he knew it was mostly his own fault. Even in sleep, he tossed and turned until his blankets were twisted at the foot of the bed and his pillow was a lumpy mess. And somewhere during the less than desirable sleep, Richie had decided that he didn’t want to see Eddie. Until he knew what to say and do and how to fix everything, he didn’t want to face the physical reminder of everything he was missing.</p><p>So that meant school was off the table.</p><p>Which meant that Maggie was storming into his bedroom sometime around eight in the morning when he still hadn’t emerged.</p><p>“What the fuck is going on in here?” Maggie asked, pushing his bedroom door open. “School starts in five minutes!”</p><p>“I’m just exhausted,” he told Maggie, pulling his blanket up to his nose, even if it would make his words muffled. “I’ll just fall asleep in class and get a detention and then what kind of learning and education will I really get? This way I can just get notes from one of the Losers and be ready for class again tomorrow. It’ll actually be better, because-”</p><p>“I get it, Richie, you think you can talk yourself into and out of any situation,” Maggie had her hands on her hips, but she didn’t look angry anymore.</p><p>“Well, did it work?”</p><p>Maggie smiled ruefully.</p><p>“Yeah, I guess it did. You get some sleep, rest up so that you can get back to school tomorrow.”</p><p>Richie agreed.</p><p>“Hey, Mags,” Richie called after her as she pulled the door shut. At the sound of her name, she pushed it back open, big blue eyes fixing Richie with concern.</p><p>“Yeah, bud?”</p><p>He didn’t want to say the words that sat at the tip of his tongue. He’d thought about them for years and he’d avoided talking about them. And here he was voluntarily bringing them up. His chest felt heavy, as if it would concave around the words as they stumbled out,</p><p>“Will you still love me if I don’t go to college?”</p><p>Maggie looked surprised, clearing not having expected such a question. She came farther into the room, playing with her wedding band as she crossed Richie’s bedroom in stride. She gestured towards the edge of Richie’s bed, asking permission to sit down. Richie pulled the duvet up to hide the flush of his cheeks, and the worry of his bottom lip, but he nodded. She sat down, pushing her curls behind her ears as she did so.</p><p>“When you were born,” Maggie started. “I was terrified of having a son. Boys were always so confusing to me. I feel like half the time I never understood what your father and his friends were talking about. I wanted to <em>relate</em> to you and all this other bullshit I worried about. I always thought if I’d had a daughter I would be a better equipped mother. When you have a child, you just kind of want them to always be happy and capable of taking on the world. Every time I fail you, those old fears and worries come back up,” She paused, her shimmery blue eyes holding Richie’s gaze with fierce strength.</p><p>“Holy fuck I didn’t ask for your whole life story,” Richie tried to tease, but his voice was watery. Maggie saw right through him. She leaned over to mess with his hair, pushing it away from his forehead and pulling lightly on the ends of it, muttering<em>, “Watch your mouth,”</em></p><p>“There’s nothing you could do, Rich, that would make me stop loving you. You’ve gotta know that now.”</p><p>“Until this week I thought I knew a lot of things,” Richie grumbled, biting his tongue when he realized what exactly he’d just shared aloud.</p><p><em>Fuck</em>.</p><p>“Oh?” Maggie asked, prodding gently.</p><p>Richie didn’t answer. Didn’t have any idea what to say or if any of it was anything he wanted to share with his mother. But here she was, drawn on eyebrows scrunched up, her curly, frizzy hair pulled back in her signature black clip, hairs falling into her face.</p><p>Looking at her sort of felt like looking into a mirror; because while he had his father’s humor and tall, lanky figure, he had his mother’s sharp, clearly defined features and her excited, yet highly insecure nature.</p><p>“I haven’t seen Eddie lately,” Maggie tried softly. “How’s he doing?”</p><p>Richie sighed heavily, exhaling loudly. He closed his eyes, wishing he could pull the duvet up over his face, but they were stuck in place underneath his mother’s form.</p><p>Minutes passed and neither said a word.</p><p>Finally, Maggie hummed softly, before asking, a calm surety in her voice, “I’m guessing there’s more to this supposed sickness then?”</p><p>Richie groaned. “Maybe.”</p><p>“You’re just like your father,” Maggie chuckled softly. “When he’s having a hard time, his body reacts, too.”</p><p>“Ewe, that sounds fucking weird. I don’t want to be like an old man.” Richie whined.</p><p>Maggie just chuckled again. “Can I get you anything?” She asked, then.</p><p>Richie just shook his head.</p><p>“Alright,” Maggie stood, smiled gently before walking towards his bedroom door. “I’ll be back in a while. Just rest, Richie, don’t do anything stupid,”</p><p>Richie gasped. “Why, I would never!”</p><p>Maggie fixed him with a look. “Sure,” she laughed.</p><p>And then he was alone again.</p><p> </p><p>His day was full of cat naps. And in between sessions his mind was heavy with all the thoughts swirling inside.</p><p>(Like, yes he knew that he preferred to make jokes, but that didn’t change the fact that he was one hundred percent serious about what mattered; his love for Eddie, his desire to follow Eddie across the country in order to follow his dreams.)</p><p>When he gets up to use the restroom, his mind fumbles a new train of thought.</p><p>(No matter how uncomfortable it was, he could share <em>things</em> with Eddie if he had to. He’d have to.)</p><p>He’d been up all night, running through all the things he wanted to say. Words running through his mind again and again until they felt like scripts, like lines to learn. But it was all the truth.</p><p>He wanted to say it all right, and he felt like there was so much to lose.</p><p>In the end, there was only one idea that stuck out.</p><p>Eddie was <em>it</em> for him. What was the point of anything else?</p><p>So he jumped from his bed, searching the floor for a clean pair of jeans—well, clean enough. He pulled a t-shirt off his desk chair and slipped into his leather jacket. He padded around the room, squirting himself with Beverly’s old strawberry perfume, sprayed his hair with some product Stan had recommended before running down the stairs and out the door.</p><p>(And he hoped he wasn’t asking too much, he just wanted to be loved by Eddie. He was too tired to be tough.)</p><p>Things had gotten too far. He’d let Eddie build up fences until he felt defenseless. But none of that mattered anymore.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. too tired to be tough</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>And whether he liked it or not, Eddie had just given Mike full view of everything rotting away inside of him. Not only the obvious love and adoration he held for Richie, but also the dark and chilling fears that hid behind his usual façade. The demons that Eddie tried so hard to ignore. Their large and looming presence. Eddie couldn’t ignore the weight they pressed on his chest, begging to be heard over the old drag of his heart. Even more so now that they had an audience.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Here we go with chapter 2, this time we’re going to see the week from Eddie’s POV. That means that this chapter happens simultaneously with chapter one. Monday from this chapter happened at the same time as Monday from last chapter. They’re companion pieces! Our favorite boys are suffering together…</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>A Week Ago</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Day 1 – Friday </em>
</p>
<p>As the final bell rang, Eddie raced towards the locker room. He’d made Ben agree to meet him early at the doors to the locker room. It wasn’t completely rare for the pair to meet early and practice. They were the two newest members of the track team, and the perfectionist in Eddie was eager to master everything the first time and shave seconds off of his sprints.</p>
<p>Eddie’s backpack was heavy on his shoulders. He stood awkwardly, glaring at everyone who passed by while glancing up and down the hallway.</p>
<p>The day had been miserable. Lunch in particular had been terrible. But he didn’t have to think about it anymore when he could see Bev and Ben approaching.</p>
<p>The pair stood side-by-side, walking in perfect sync. Ben’s jacket sleeves were pushed up his arms, his hair lying flat against his forehead. Beverly stood a couple of inches shorter than Ben, and as they walked her shoulder brushed against his bicep. There was a cigarette tucked behind Beverly’s ear and a long rant falling from her lips in hushed tones. Eddie only caught the tail end of her, “<em>so that’s why.”</em> Ben was nodding emphatically, a soft, knowing expression on his face.</p>
<p>As they approached, Ben seemed to sense Beverly’s need before she even voiced it, as he took the books in Beverly’s grasp as she reached out to hug Eddie.</p>
<p>“Hey, Eds,” Beverly smiled happily. He accepted her embrace reluctantly, glancing over her shoulder. As she pulled away, she grabbed the cigarette from behind her ear and gestured towards the door. “Gonna smoke this and then take my books to my locker,” she grabbed the books from Ben’s grasp and placed a chaste kiss against his lips. A light red flush dusted the tops of Ben’s cheeks—public displays of affection weren’t one hundred percent comfortable for him—but he smiled and waved goodbye.</p>
<p>Ben and Eddie didn’t really talk as they changed. The entire process was very methodical for Eddie; face the lockers to quickly pull off school clothing, easily slide into practice uniform, spin around to sit on bench, tie on sneakers and jump back onto feet.</p>
<p>Ben was slower, taking time to brush his hair out of his eyes, and spray it back with a bit of Beverly’s hairspray. Eddie knew if he were to do so, the other team members would have something cruel to say, but Ben was bigger, and Beverly was beautiful. They would always be Losers, but they were Losers who were in heterosexual relationships. Ben had a pass Eddie would never have.</p>
<p>Ben changed and then the pair went back onto the track behind Derry High.</p>
<p>For two hours, Eddie focused on the pace of his breathing and the trajectory of his arms swinging back and forth. Instead of dread and heartache swimming in his mind, his overactive thought flow was full of technique and strategy.</p>
<p>As track practice concluded, Eddie accepted Ben’s invitation for dinner. Beverly had waited on the bleachers, smoking half a pack of cigarettes—not that Eddie had been paying attention. She had a worried look on her face, but she smiled and accepted Ben’s kiss when they met up again. Bev and Ben chattered happily and the three biked to the Hanscom home not too far from the school.</p>
<p>Ben’s house smelled like the spices his mother was using to cook. Their housecat greeted them at the door, slinking through their legs and purring at the attention Ben gave her. Wordlessly, Eddie pushed open the first door on the right which led into Ben’s bedroom. As always, the room was a tornado of things. There were books, school assignments, jackets and loose papers. The large desk that faced his windows was covered in stacks of paper and framed photos. Eddie loved the ones the Losers had taken at Ben’s last birthday party, even if Richie was too busy laughing to even face the camera.</p>
<p>Eddie flung himself onto the great big leather armchair that was pushed into the far corner of the room. He dropped his backpack to the ground and raked a hand through his sweat-dried hair. The wind on the bike ride over had simultaneously dried and caked the sweat into his tousled curls. He could feel the flush on his cheeks, as his eyes wandered around the room. The wall above his head was decorated in newspaper clippings of their winning meets; medals dangling from the nails that secured them. Eddie loved Ben’s room, what with its controlled chaos and funky wallpaper.</p>
<p>Beverly was in next, calling hello to Mrs. Hanscom over her shoulder. Beverly’s shoulders were tense, as she belly-flopped onto Ben’s bed. It wasn’t made; instead, matching blue and green plaid blankets and pillows were twisted and tangled around it. Beverly buried her head into the mattress, and even from his spot across the room he could smell the cigarette smoke that clung to her clothing.</p>
<p>Eddie wanted to ask her something, but the words didn’t come.</p>
<p>Ben came in last, swinging the door shut behind him.</p>
<p>“Mom says dinner won’t be long,” Ben said, slipping out of his jacket and letting it fall to the floor at his feet. Eddie twitched slightly—wanted to tell Ben to <em>pick up your jacket or it’ll get wrinkled and you’ll ridiculous at the next meet</em>—but he just glanced to the window instead.</p>
<p>“Okay, babe,” was Beverly’s muffled reply.</p>
<p>“What’s she making?” Eddie asked.</p>
<p>“Some kind of casserole I think,” Ben shrugged. He had an apple in his hand that he was now crunching into. Eddie kind of wanted one too—knew that Mrs. Hanscom would want him to have one—but he didn’t feel like slipping through the halls and into the kitchen. Didn’t want to face Mrs. Hanscom’s kind and thoughtful conversation.</p>
<p>As Eddie fiddled with the hem of his shorts, Bev sat up and cuddled into Ben’s side when he finally climbed onto the bed with her. They looked cozy, as if they both belonged in that space together.</p>
<p>“So, uh,” Beverly cleared her throat, causing Eddie to look up. “Lunch was kinda weird today.”</p>
<p>Ben made a sound, some kind of mix of disproval and shock. Beverly wasn’t afraid to speak her mind though, and it was something Eddie had always admired about her. And although he really didn’t want to answer her, or entertain her thought process, he couldn’t blame her for having picked up on the shit show that was Richie and Eddie at lunch that early afternoon.</p>
<p>“I guess so,” Eddie nodded, as there didn’t seem to be any point in lying. Beverly had already seen through him.</p>
<p>“What happened?” Beverly asked gently, her freckled nose scrunched up in concern. Ben had that thoughtful look across his features. Eddie suddenly wished he hadn’t come at all. He’d wanted company. He hadn’t accounted for this turn out.</p>
<p>“What’re you talking about?” Eddie chose to say, looking down at the brown leather of the armchair he had snuggled into. The leather was cold against his skin, but he refused to grab the blanket that hung behind it. His gaze fell to the floor, too, the bright pattern of Ben’s rug captivating.</p>
<p>“Cut the bullshit,” Beverly said, though it was still kind in the way that Beverly always was. “I was at lunch today.”</p>
<p>“She’s right,” Ben cut in. Eddie looked up to drink in their expressions. “Lunch was kinda weird.”</p>
<p>And weren’t they right about that?</p>
<p>“I don’t want to talk about it,” Eddie groaned, hiding his face in his hands. But before he’d hid, he caught a glimpse of a look shared between Bev and Ben. He didn’t want to see it again; worry, pity, barely worded questions on the tip of their lips.</p>
<p>“If you don’t tell us how are we supposed to fix it?” Beverly asked, and Eddie kind of wanted to laugh in irony. There was nothing anyone could do to fix the current mess Eddie was living in. Except maybe his boyfriend, the very one who had allowed the situation to end up so fucked up.</p>
<p>“There’s nothing you can do, nothing to fix, nothing to talk about,” Eddie rambled.</p>
<p>“Did something happen with Richie?” Beverly asked again, though she appeared to already know the answer. She was asking to confirm a suspicion she already had.</p>
<p>But answering would mean facing the truth of it.</p>
<p>His shoulders slumped. His heart plummeted. And the first tears he’d allowed himself to cry leaked from the corners of his eyes. Far from dramatics, his chest seemed to cave in as a nearly silent gasping sob broke from his lips. <em>How, </em>he wanted to ask—himself, Richie, the pair before him, the universe—<em>how had things ended up like this?</em></p>
<p>He supposed he knew how.</p>
<p>Though it didn’t make him feel much better at all.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Ben’s voice was suddenly close, and soft, full of concern. Ben was sometimes the emotional backbone of the Losers. He wasn’t afraid of asking someone how they were and hearing the real, truthful answer. It didn’t scare him when Eddie whined about his mother, or the fears their little homophobic town brought him. He’d taught Eddie words like <em>anxiety</em> and <em>breathing techniques, </em>and what it meant to combat his somatopsychic asthma. Eddie wasn’t afraid to cry in front of Ben, no matter how deliriously theatrical he felt. “Hey, Eddie, man,”</p>
<p>Eddie didn’t look up, just nodded his head slightly, his cheeks hot and wet now.</p>
<p>(Richie didn’t want to go to college. Did he want to leave Derry at all? And what the hell was a house husband anyway?)</p>
<p>Eddie could just see Ben’s socked feet from where he crouched before him, focused on it as Ben spoke again, “You don’t have to talk about it,”</p>
<p>So he didn’t. Even if he’d wanted to, he had no idea what to say. His mind was whirling, and his thoughts were upsetting. For every tear that slipped down his cheeks, his mind screamed something new.</p>
<p>(<em>Richie doesn’t want you anymore.</em></p>
<p>
  <em>Richie didn’t want to talk about college, what else is he avoiding?</em>
</p>
<p><em>You have different goals.</em>)</p>
<p>“I’m so <em>dumb</em>,” Eddie finally spoke, surprised at how watery his voice was. He cleared his throat to try again. “And Richie is <em>so</em> fucking dumb,” he sounded only a bit better. He sounded like he had been crying. <em>Which.</em></p>
<p>“You are not,” Ben soothed at the same time Beverly restated,</p>
<p>“Yeah he fucking is,”</p>
<p>“I’m so angry,” Eddie cried. “I just wish Richie would just fucking talk sometimes.”</p>
<p>“He’s impossible sometimes,” Beverly agreed from her place on Ben’s bed. “Like a chronic avoider,”</p>
<p>Eddie made a high-pitched whine, one that made Ben apologize and hush him softly. He could tell that Ben wanted to reach out but chose to hover just at Eddie’s side. He wasn’t sure if he wanted Ben’s physical comfort, so he didn’t move to accept or envelop him.</p>
<p>“Talking’s just hard for Richie, I think,” Ben supplied, speaking what Eddie already knew. Of course, Richie was impossible, but it didn’t make him feel any better. He wanted Richie to just fucking <em>try</em>.</p>
<p>Eddie sniffled, running a finger beneath his nose. His chin itched where it had collected his salty tears.</p>
<p>Eddie jumped slightly in his spot when there was suddenly a loud rapping sound on Ben’s bedroom door. The door slid open slightly, Mrs. Hanscom’s round and wrinkled face peeking through.</p>
<p>“Dinners ready, kids,” Mrs. Hanscom said. She didn’t look around, nor did she ask why Ben was currently crouched in front of a silently sobbing Eddie. She did smile, though, and began heading back to the kitchen. Mrs. Hanscom was great like that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As they ate, Ben, Bev and Mrs. Hanscom spoke amicably. She wanted to know how practice had gone, and whether Beverly enjoyed the yogurt Mrs. Hanscom had suggested. Her green eyes were warm, and when Eddie only answered with short, clipped answers, she understood enough to give him the semblance of space he so desperately craved. His eyes still felt wet, and his cheeks burned where the dried tear tracks were. He didn’t want to talk about it, and he didn’t want to talk about anything that would distract his mind.</p>
<p>He was kind of miserable.</p>
<p>As dinner concluded, and Ben offered to wash the dishes, Mrs. Hanscom excused herself for the evening, leaving Bev and Eddie alone in the dining room. The candles that sat in the center had been blown out, and the lights had been turned back up. Bev had somehow conjured a nail file and was currently reshaping the nails on her left hand. Eddie hated that he also knew how to do that particular skill, that his mother had taught him years and years ago. When Richie and Bill and Stan had been climbing and sliding down at Derry Public Park, Eddie had been in the lamp illuminated cave of his mothers living room, filing down her nails.</p>
<p>“Richie’s a fucking dumbass,” Bev spoke up, not looking up from her task. Eddie was grateful, because just the sound of his boyfriend’s name was enough to set his heart cracking again. “But he’ll come around, I promise.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Eddie said, for lack of knowing what else to say.</p>
<p>“And if he doesn’t, I’ll beat his ass,” Bev said casually, a wicked smirk taking up her face.</p>
<p>“You’d win easily,” Eddie told her, and she nodded.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I would.” She looked up then, her infamous blue eyes sparkling over at him. Eddie didn’t know what to say—when did he ever—so he just mumbled out a,</p>
<p>“Thanks, Bev,”</p>
<p>“Don’t mention it,” she shrugged with a smile. “What’re friends for,”</p>
<p>She said it as a statement, not a question. It stopped Eddie’s thought circle—<em>Richie’s a dumbass but I love him and I miss him but he’s a dumbass who won’t talk so I never, ever know but I still love him and miss him and</em>—her words rolling around in his mind.</p>
<p>Ben slipped back into the dining room then, standing behind Bev and wrapping his arms around her neck. Eddie watched as she leaned back to smile at him, their lips meeting in a soft press. Even as Bev looked back down at her hands, nail file moving again, Ben’s face was still lit up with love and adoration.</p>
<p>He turned to Eddie then, asking him if he had homework he wanted to start on. But Eddie’d had enough for one night. His eyes felt itchy again with the desire to leak some more. He’d cried in front of his friends enough for one night, he decided.</p>
<p>“I have to go home,” Eddie muttered softly. He felt utterly raw and exposed, as if his skin had peeled away and the fluorescent lightbulbs of Ben’s moms dining room were scrutinizing and examining what lay beneath. As if his heart was on display; small and weak and bleeding.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Ben nodded, a sad smile on his face. Eddie wanted to beg him to stop, to just genuinely smile at him for once that night. He also wanted to race across town and storm into Richie’s bedroom. Both seemed like bad ideas.</p>
<p>So he just kind of stood up clumsily. He wasn’t prepared for Ben’s hug, so he stood limply with his shoulders hunched and arms angled awkwardly. But it was still warm. Ben smelt like sweat and the supposedly-manly-though-really-kinda-shitty cologne he kept in his little locker in their section of the locker room. Beverly clambered out of her seat and when Ben finally released him, Beverly grabbed onto him. They were the same height, and so they were pressed chest-to-chest and cheek-to-cheek. Her red hair bobbed at the bottom of her ears, long beaded earrings reaching down to her shoulders and brushing his collarbone when they hug. She was infinitely warm, capable of holding the summer sunshine with her wherever she went.</p>
<p>Eddie missed Richie.</p>
<p>What a shitty thing to think, Eddie acknowledged belatedly, when your two best friends wrapped you up in a hug.</p>
<p>He hugged her back, just as she went to pull away. It would be awkward if it was anybody but Beverly. But she took it all in stride, rubbing her arm up his back and promising him again that Richie would come around.</p>
<p>So he went home. He showered, scrubbed his skin until it was pink and sensitive to the touch. And he kissed his mother goodnight, let her rub lotion into the taut skin of his shoulder blades and then down to his wrists. It smelt like nothing but soapy bubbles, because scented products—his mother adamantly claimed—caused Eddie to break out into rashes. Apparently.</p>
<p>He climbed into bed that night and pretended that he didn’t cry himself to sleep.</p>
<p>X</p>
<p>
  <em>Day 2 – Saturday</em>
</p>
<p>Early morning track practice ended no later than eleven each Saturday morning. As the weather continued to improve towards pure sunshine, the early morning wakeup call was appreciated. School afternoons were warm, sometimes borderline sweltering, sweat constantly pouring down Eddie’s back. At eight in the morning, Eddie felt exerted but healthily so.</p>
<p>Eddie waved goodbye to his team, to Ben specifically, before mounting his bike and riding away from Derry High.</p>
<p>For some reason Eddie didn’t understand, his mother never expected him home before curfew on Saturday’s. It could’ve been due to many reasons, most of which revolved around the weekly phone calls his mother made to her sisters. Her sisters would demand new stories about <em>sweet</em>, <em>young</em> Eddie. And his mother would share horrendously exaggerated and sometimes outdated stories. Sometimes, Eddie wasn’t sure she was even talking about him at all. Then they’d gossip about neighbors the others had never met and cousins they hadn’t seen in decades. They’d share recipes, his mother promising over the line that she was writing them all down, all the while she worked on her newspaper crossword puzzles.</p>
<p>Eddie could hardly sit through those phone calls and luckily, he didn’t have to much anymore. He was free to bike through the town, hide down in the clubhouse or at the quarry’s edge, or huddled beneath the blankets at Richie’s. He could sit in a booth at the diner or share grilled cheese sandwiches at Ben’s.</p>
<p>That Saturday though, there was nowhere to go. It was too early; Bill wouldn’t be awake for hours. Beverly, too. It was too far into spring; Mike had chores. Stan was too critical and matter of fact for Eddie’s current mental and emotional state. Ben had invited him to come over, but not until he’d mowed most of the lawns in his neighborhood. </p>
<p>Richie’s was off limits, Eddie told himself.</p>
<p>(He could picture it now; Went opening the door with a bowl of cereal in tow. His happy smile that further wrinkled his features bright. He’d chuckled about Richie still being asleep, tittering some joke about teenagers. But then he’d gesture towards the stairs, and without a second thought Eddie would take them two at a time.</p>
<p>He’d quietly push Richie’s bedroom door open, slipping it shut behind himself, pulling off his sweaty clothing as quickly as he could manage. Without tearing his eyes away from Richie’s sleeping, rumpled form, Eddie would gingerly slip each leg out of the little running shorts his boyfriend called sinful. </p>
<p>His pile of clothes was neatly placed on Richie’s dresser, as Eddie pulled open the second drawer from the bottom where Richie’s sleeping shirts were. Eddie would pick the one on top--even though the pile was lopsided since Richie always dug through to find his favorites--and slip it over his head. </p>
<p>Finally, he’d cross the room and nudge Richie away from the center of his large bed. He’d shove and maneuver until there was a space big enough for Eddie to crawl into. In his sleep, Richie would fling his limbs around Eddie until they were a tangled mess. And Eddie would fall back asleep wrapped up in the arms of his favorite person.)</p>
<p>Eddie didn’t want to think about it. Because he could have that right now; he could trudge in the opposite direction and up the hill to the Tozier’s. But he also couldn’t. Because he didn’t know what Richie was thinking anymore; had no idea what Richie even wanted anymore.</p>
<p>So he decided to ride towards the edge of the Barrens, and the little hill that Richie had affectionately named Little Tit so many summers ago. He could lay there underneath the shade of his favorite trees and watch the clouds drift by. And pretend that he wasn’t thinking about Richie and their imploding relationship.</p>
<p>X</p>
<p>
  <em>Day 3 – Sunday</em>
</p>
<p>“Have you seen Richie this weekend?” Eddie whispered into the receiver of the telephone. His mother was in the living room, the nail polish he’d just applied still drying on her fingernails. The garish violet color matched the pattern of the nightgown she still hadn’t changed out of. It was a slow Sunday afternoon, and Eddie prayed that the horrendous sound of her television show playing loudly would prevent her from listening to his current phone conversation.</p>
<p>“Yuh-yeah,” Bill answered easily. “Like t-tw-twenty muh-minutes ago.”</p>
<p>“Really?” Eddie asked, suddenly unsure of what to say to Bill now. He’d figured that Richie would’ve seen one of the Losers, and Bill had just been his first phone call.</p>
<p>“Yeah, we slept oh-over at B-bev’s last nuh-n-night,” Bill explained, his tone light. Eddie was dying to know what that meant. (Was he calm because Richie hadn’t acted like anything was wrong? Had Richie just hidden behind his goofy jokes all night? Or maybe Richie wasn’t bothered by their argument at all?)</p>
<p>“Did he say anything?” Eddie blurted, cursing himself silently. While he waited to hear Bill’s answer, he laced the phone cord between his fingers.</p>
<p>“Y-yeah, he suh-said a lot,” Bill chuckled lightly—the soft, breathy one that lit up his whole face—and all Eddie could do was roll his eyes, even if Bill couldn’t see him.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but like did he say anything about, like,” an uncomfortable, dreadful sense of stupidity washed over Eddie, because the word on the tip of his tongue was <em>me</em>.</p>
<p>“Oh, luh-like wh-whatever was guh-going on on Fr-fr-Friday?” Bill finished while Eddie struggled for the right words.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Eddie agreed, closing his eyes in anticipation.</p>
<p>“Not ruh-really,” Bill said. “We just g-got high.”</p>
<p><em>Of course</em>, Eddie wanted to grumble. Eddie had spent the night lonely and sad, over-thinking every single word of their last argument, willing Richie to just come over and <em>talk</em>.</p>
<p>“Wh-wh-what happened?” Bill asked when the line had been quiet for a minute.</p>
<p>“I can’t get into that right now,” Eddie sighed, pinching the fabric at the hem of his t-shirt between his fingers.</p>
<p>“Come over,” Bill said, as if it were ever that simple for Eddie.</p>
<p>“I can’t,” Eddie whined, glancing back down the hallway. He could hear his mothers’ television show perfectly from his spot clear across the house. From his spot, he watched the blue light shadows the television cast against the wall. “It’s Sunday,” he reminded Bill, who sighed knowingly.</p>
<p>“Sn-sn-sneak out,” Bill suggested. “When she f-falls ah-asleep.”</p>
<p>Eddie worried his bottom lip between his teeth, glancing down the hallway again. It wouldn’t be the first time, but usually Richie was at the bottom of his bedroom window to help him in and out. Richie was there to catch him if he fell, and hoist him back in; could he do it without him?</p>
<p>“Come on,” Bill pressed when Eddie didn’t answer.</p>
<p>“Okay, fine,” Eddie grumbled. “I’ll see you tonight,” he gently placed the phone back on the receiver, slinking back down the hallway and into his mother’s den.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>That night, Eddie rode his bike down the path he could follow in his sleep. The air was nippy, so he’d zipped his jacket up as high as it went, tying the jaw string closed.</p>
<p>Mostly, he didn’t want to be alone. The thought of being stuck in his stuffy house with his mother’s television booming throughout the halls, the stench of her perfume hanging off of everything and her insistence to eat watered down vegetables—because raw vegetables <em>dangerous</em>—was more than Eddie could handle. His chest still felt cavernous with everything it currently had to hold together.</p>
<p>So he kissed his mother's cheek, and before she could wrap her talons around him any tighter, he excused himself to bed. Climbing out of his bedroom window went about as well as he had expected, which was to say not well at all. He fell to the ground in a heap, picking himself up and slipping around the house to where he kept his bike.</p>
<p>He rode hastily, pushing the pedals as quickly as his legs would allow. As the fresh air hits hi face, he was suddenly gasping. He held his breath for several seconds, letting the fresh early-evening air percolate in his lungs. Breathing was suddenly a hundred times easier. And while he wished he was on his way to Richie’s—to watch a movie or listen to music as loudly as they wanted or enjoy Went’s infamous french toast—he rode in the night air to Bill’s instead.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>“What did Richie tell you?!” Eddie asked as soon as Bill shut his bedroom door. Eddie wasn’t sure if either Mr. or Mrs. Denbrough was home, but he appreciated the privacy—the privacy to talk openly about Richie, their relationship and the myriad of emotions that were swirling through him.</p>
<p>“Nuh-nothing!” Bill answered earnestly.</p>
<p>“Bullshit!”</p>
<p>“He’s Ruh-richie,” Bill supplied lamely.</p>
<p>“No shit,” Eddie grumbled, suppressing an urge to whack Bill’s shoulder. (And it wouldn’t even hurt him, Bill was much stronger than Eddie was.) “So you have no information?”</p>
<p>Bill didn’t answer right away. Instead, he settled onto his bed, a thoughtful expression etched onto his features. Eddie remained where he was standing, even when Bill patted the place next to him.</p>
<p>“I hate th-th-this conf-flict,”</p>
<p>Eddie whined; a high pitch sound paired with throwing his head back. Bill meant well. Bill was one of Eddie’s best friends. Eddie knew without a doubt that Bill wanted to help, but sometimes his idea of helping wasn’t what Eddie wanted. Eddie wanted Bill to have information he could work with, a peek into what Richie was thinking and feeling.</p>
<p>He ignored Bill’s sad face and began pacing from Bill’s large bay windows and back towards the far wall. It was slow at first, until the fury inside him rose. His pace quickened, and so back and forth Eddie paced, all the while worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.</p>
<p>“I huh-hate this conf-flict,” Bill repeated himself, uneasiness evident in his voice.</p>
<p>“And you think I don’t?!” Eddie exclaimed, stopping to stand at the foot of Bill’s bed. They faced one another, holding their gaze before Bill said,</p>
<p>“I’m wuh-worried,” Bill stressed his voice again. “You n-need to c-c-call him.” It was more than a suggestion, but Eddie wasn’t convinced.</p>
<p>“Yeah right!” Eddie exclaimed, turning away and resuming his pacing, this time much quicker.</p>
<p>“I duh-duh-don’t like when we fuh-fight,” Bill said, his sad, does eyes turned to Eddie. Once upon a time, Eddie would’ve done anything for Bill, especially when those doe eyes came out. Now, Eddie wasn’t so sure, especially when Bill spoke in a nearly commanding voice, “You nuh-need to c-call him.”</p>
<p>Eddie shook his head, “Uh uh,” falling from his lips. Bill’s expression changed, looking like a wounded animal.</p>
<p>“Eddie, come on!” Bill commanded, eyes bright. “You huh-have to!”</p>
<p>“I <em>can’t</em>!” Eddie exclaimed, feeling wild. His resolve felt strong suddenly. The thought had bounced around since Richie had stormed out of his bedroom with Eddie’s fragile heart in hand—if things were to be patched up, it had to be on Richie’s terms. Eddie was too vulnerable, his chest cut wide open with everything on display; his missing heart and it’s wide, open, gaping place.</p>
<p>“<em>Fuck</em>,” Bill cursed, biting aggressively at his fingernails. They were already bitten down to the skin, leading Bill to now pull at the surrounding skin with his teeth. It looked painful, tugging at Eddie’s heartstrings. Not enough to change his resoluteness though.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I fucking know,” Eddie sighed, finally falling onto Bill’s bed. “This is so fucked.”</p>
<p>“What are we guh-going to-to do?” Bill asked after a moment of silence. Eddie rose his head, his sadness reigniting to anger.</p>
<p>“<em>He</em> needs to call <em>me</em>! I didn’t do anything wrong except for care about his dumb ass! But why even bother right?! If he doesn’t want to be helped, then that’s not my problem.”</p>
<p>“It is!” Bill insisted, his features showing off how upsetting the entire situation was for him. “Y-y-you guys tuh-tuh-take care of each-each other!”</p>
<p>“Yeah, well I tried that, and he didn’t want anything to do with it! Do you know his plan for after high school, Bill?!” The question was rhetorical, and as Bill went to answer it, Eddie ranted on. “He doesn’t have one! It’s his usually carefree, peace and booze and weed attitude!”</p>
<p>“Ruh-richie doesn’t dr-drink,” Bill said unhelpfully. And if Eddie wasn’t desperate for his help and company, he might’ve just thrown a pillow at him and left. Instead, he took a deep breath and glared.</p>
<p>“I meant,” Eddie started again, “that he isn’t taking anything seriously. He’s not even going to take the SAT!”</p>
<p>“Wait, really?” Bill’s eyebrows shot up, and Eddie was happy to have finally converted Bill to his side.</p>
<p>“Yes, really! He said that he’s not going to college, and so there’s no reason to take it. He’s all,” Eddie rolled onto his back on the bed, fixing his face into something to mock Richie with. “<em>I don’t need to take some fucking test to tell me about my future,”</em></p>
<p>“Th-th-that’s not what the SAT is!”</p>
<p>“I know!” Eddie exploded. “He doesn’t care about his future at all, Bill! I don’t even know if he has a plan!”</p>
<p>“That’s fu-fu-fucked up, Eds,”</p>
<p>“I know!”</p>
<p>Eddie closed his eyes, because the raw vulnerable truth of his words burned his throat. Tears he’d bottled up pricked at his eyes, and he desperately wanted to avoid crying.</p>
<p>“I can’t even look at him,” Eddie finally admitted, feeling copious amounts of both anger and sadness swelling inside of him. “I can’t do it, Bill. Until he comes and talks to me, I can’t pretend that this isn’t eating me up alive.”</p>
<p>“Okay, yeah,” Bill nodded his head empathetically. “You-you don’t ha-have to, Eds.”</p>
<p>X</p>
<p>
  <em>Day 4 – Monday</em>
</p>
<p>Bill stayed true to his word that day at lunch, demanding that Richie go sit across the lunchroom with their other friends. Richie argued back, and Eddie missed him even as he stood within an arm’s reach.</p>
<p>Eddie didn’t look up at him, couldn’t bear to see him. He was a coward, he knew; he wouldn’t even try to deny it. He had only ever been afraid, had been ruled by those fears. And this was no fucking different; afraid of what Richie wouldn’t say to him and how badly it was going to break his heart.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sometimes, while the track team practiced, students would gather in the stand to watch. Football was closed practice, and the soccer team practiced out in the field, but track and field happened underneath the pleasant spring sun, drawing the student body out to watch. And if there were afternoons where neither Richie nor Beverly were scheduled to work, they’d huddle together in the top right corner of the bleachers. They’d laugh and point and smoke, and sometimes they’d cheer obnoxiously.</p>
<p>Eddie glared at them every time. As he ran past, and they cheered and heckled, he’d shoot daggers with his eyes, paired with his middle finger flashed their way.</p>
<p>Eddie loved it. Sometimes, he’d inhale deeply and run quicker around the track so as to be back to the stretch where he could actually hear his friends; hear Richie joke and laugh and snort when Beverly landed a good chuck. If he strained, he could sometimes hear Richie’s loud, obnoxious broadcaster voice as he commentated practice.</p>
<p>That dreary Monday, with dark, ominous clouds over head, Beverly sat alone. Her giant trigonometry textbook sat in her lap, a lit cigarette hanging between her lips. She was huddled up in Ben’s track jacket, and she didn’t look down at the track when Eddie ran by. Sometimes she’d glance up, level a hand above her eyes and peer out into the distance. She’d smile and wave, but then she’d duck back into her book.</p>
<p>Without Richie, she wasn’t <em>there</em>. She seemed far away.</p>
<p>And then, as the sky opened and buckets worth of rain was dumped from the heavens, the bleachers were emptied immediately. Bev’s fiery red hair followed behind her until she, like everyone else, was far out of sight.</p>
<p>Eddie hated running in the rain. His toes got too cold, and his jersey was too heavy, and his shorts rubbed his inner thighs raw. But even as the clouds continued to spew their contents onto Derry, their coach made no move to end practice early. Instead, he blew his whistle in two quick successions, meaning <em>pick up speed</em>.</p>
<p>So Eddie did. And the rain hit harder. But it still wasn’t a good distractor of everything Eddie was currently battling.</p>
<p>He’d never felt so defenseless. It felt like sleeping on his problems, but there wasn’t anything he could do anymore. The situation was out of his hands. No matter how many times he ran the situation through his mind, it didn’t change a damn thing.</p>
<p>Instead, he felt farther and farther from Richie. Richie, who continued to build up his impenetrable walls. Richie, who left him utterly defenseless.</p>
<p>If Richie didn’t want to make a way for Eddie to get inside and see the things Richie was afraid of sharing, there was nothing Eddie could do. Eddie ached to just walk to the others house, warm up in his shower and curl up into the bed with him. But Richie didn’t want that. Richie had another future in mind, and Eddie would have to learn to live with it.</p>
<p>Eddie had never been so defenseless.</p>
<p>X</p>
<p>
  <em>Day 5 – Tuesday</em>
</p>
<p>Eddie was so lonely. Thoughts pinged back and forth in his mind with no one to share them with. Late nights had become times to talk and laugh. Richie could hardly sleep and was always willing to listen to Eddie. Because sometimes Eddie’s thoughts were scary or dark, but when shared with another they didn’t feel as heavy. And while Richie never really shared anything, it was comforting when Richie stroked the back of his neck and planted slow, lazy kisses against his temple.</p>
<p>He’d thought the future was an okay late-night topic, too.</p>
<p>Oh what he would give to have Richie with him now.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>He didn’t sleep well. And by time he made it to school, the bags under his eyes were as heavy as his chest. He slid into the tiny table Ben had snagged for them. Ben had a small smile on his face, Bev, too.</p>
<p>“You wanna come over tonight?” Bev had asked casually as the three stood up after the final lunch bell rang. “I have some new fabric I wanna try out.”</p>
<p>
  
</p>
<p>Now, Eddie was tucked into Beverly’s room with her. The sewing machine Bev’s Aunt Catherine and the Losers had pooled together to buy sat proudly on the little desk squished between the wall and her daybed. Eddie was the only one close enough in height to Bev, so when she needed a model for pieces for herself Eddie was her model.</p>
<p>(He’d kept that a secret from Richie for quite a while.)</p>
<p>The thin straps of Bev’s flowy, floral green dress slipped off her shoulders as she worked. She’d abandoned the cardigan she’d worn to school as soon as they’d pushed into her bedroom that afternoon. Eddie could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath. Instead, the pale, freckled skin at the top of her chest was visible, her bottom lip stuck between her teeth. She was beautiful, Eddie knew objectively, but to him she was just his best friend. Her hair kept falling into her eyes, and she’d blow on it until Eddie pulled it back for her. She smiled up at him, and he wanted to smile back but the ache in his chest was still too tight.</p>
<p>He hated that it wasn’t something he could just shrug off, that it was something he had been carrying around with him for days now.</p>
<p>The pair were quiet while Bev sewed. Though the room wasn’t silent. Rain still splattered at her windowsill. Bev’s sewing machine whirled. Eddie blinked, and even that sound echoed in his ears.</p>
<p>He kind of wanted to talk. He kind of wanted to share some of the heavy thoughts that had burrowed into his mind. He hadn’t spoken to Richie in days, and the loneliness was finally settling into his core.</p>
<p>He also really didn’t want to say anything at all; the words felt too heavy on his tongue.</p>
<p>“I can hear you thinking,” Beverly teased, scaring Eddie in the process. He sat on her bed, floral pillow propped behind his back as he leaned against the wall.</p>
<p>“That’s not possible,” he said, feeling a bit petulant. Beverly just laughed.</p>
<p>“Well, if it were possible, your mind would be screaming or something,”</p>
<p>“I have a lot on my mind,” he defended himself, an icy hint to his voice. He instantly felt silly, though, when Bev glanced up and gave him an unimpressed look.</p>
<p>“Yeah, I bet,” she was back to sewing, gently pushing the pedal of her machine until the blue string stitched the fabric together. Eddie watched intently, amazed by the process. “Wanna talk about it?”</p>
<p>“Kinda,” Eddie found himself saying.</p>
<p>“Well, I’m all ears, Eds,”</p>
<p>Eddie didn’t speak, lying to himself that it was because he didn’t know what to say. He knew it was ridiculous.</p>
<p>Bev stood up suddenly, gesturing for him to do the same. She shimmied her shoulders until the straps of her floor-length dress were back in place. She toed off her doc marten boots and pointed from Eddie’s rising form to the little stepstool.</p>
<p>Eddie wordlessly followed her direction, standing taller than her now. He waited as she pulled her creation away from the machine and over to Eddie’s body.</p>
<p>She was making another dress, Eddie realized. It appeared to be like the one she was wearing, although this one would have sleeves.</p>
<p>“Do you mind taking your shirt off?” Bev asked. “I need to measure the sleeves.”</p>
<p>Eddie shook his head and pulled the navy-blue sweater over his head. Despite the warmer spring weather Derry was currently experiencing, the thunderstorms had brought back a cold front, making Eddie hide inside sweaters again.</p>
<p>(His favorite sweaters were Richie’s. They were large and cozy and smelled just like him. It didn’t feel right to wear them now, just made him miss Richie more.)</p>
<p>The dress was still in pieces, ones that Beverly had to pin and arrange together. She tied the ribbon attached to her pin cushion around her wrist and wore it as a bracelet, pulling pins out and arranging them around Eddie’s frame.</p>
<p>It was mindless work on Eddie’s part. Involving him moving only as Beverly directed him to. She moved quickly and precisely. It was like a practiced dance, one that she knew seamlessly. And she did, Eddie knew. He’d been her model enough times to know that she was a natural, that her hands sometimes moved faster than her mind; clothes creating themselves.</p>
<p>Her bottom lip was pouting down as she focused, an air of concentrated passion floating around her. As if the room were electrified around her. As if maybe they were both untouchable here in the safety of her creative space.</p>
<p>“I just,” Eddie blurted, the words coming out louder than he’d intended. “I just want him to talk to me first,” Beverly sat back, hands hovering in midair around his middle. She nodded encouragingly, her bright blue eyes holding his gaze. “I know it’s dumb but I’m always the one who has to talk to him, and I just wanted it to be him this time.”</p>
<p>“That’s not dumb, silly,” Beverly breathed out, her voice full of the love she always seemed to carry for them all. He loved her so much and had no idea how to tell her that in her bedroom, blue velvet fabric pinned, tied and stitched around him. “He’s dumb.”</p>
<p>Eddie groaned. “He is, but actually he’s really not, and that’s my biggest problem.”</p>
<p>Beverly snorted softly. “I can see that. But hey, you’re not crying anymore!” She teased lightly, referring to their conversation at Ben’s nights before.</p>
<p>“I still kinda want to,” Eddie admitted with a blush, a pinky-red no doubt lighting up his cheeks.</p>
<p>Beverly gave a little chuckle, but it wasn’t unkind. “Nothing wrong with that, Eds,” she assured him.</p>
<p>“I’m just sick of this whole situation, Bev,” Eddie whined, feeling the prick in his eyes he’d come to dread. “Maybe I’m expecting too much.”</p>
<p>“You’re not asking that much, Eds,” Beverly spoke again, her voice muffled by the pin held in place between her lips. She pulled it out and pinched the fabric at his shoulder. “You just want to know that you’re as loved as you love him.”</p>
<p>Eddie nodded eagerly. “Yes, that’s it exactly,”</p>
<p>“No one can blame you for that,” she encouraged him, using her pointer finger to poke his side. He did his best to not squirm, as he knew there were many pins loose around his body.</p>
<p>“I just didn’t think it would take this long, I guess,” Eddie admitted, allowing the sadness he felt to seep into his words.</p>
<p>“This is Richie,” Beverly pointed out with a simpering laugh.</p>
<p>“See, that’s what everyone keeps saying, but I just don’t get it. He loves people and he especially hates hurting the people he loves. I mean, I know he sucks with talking about how he’s feeling and he especially hates talking about the future and,” Eddie paused, a sudden realization flooding him. “<em>Oh,</em>” Eddie sighed in acknowledgement, a feeling of hefty weight pressing down on his chest, a dawning realization that felt more hostile than peaceful.</p>
<p>“Yeah, <em>oh</em>,” Beverly agreed, rolling the fabric at his feet up in order to correct its length. Eddie had seen her do it a million times, it was common knowledge to him now.</p>
<p>Just as it should’ve been easily identifiable to Eddie that Richie was insecure and self-sabotaging and afraid of messing up when it counted.</p>
<p>What kind of fucking boyfriend was Eddie anyway?</p>
<p>“<em>Fuck</em>,” Eddie groaned, wishing he could hide away from Beverly’s gaze. Although she was focused on the pieces of a not-yet-there dress, Eddie still felt too <em>seen</em>. As if Beverly could see his insides and be disgusted by it all.</p>
<p>“You’re okay, Eddie. C’mon, you can’t blame yourself,” she coaxed. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”</p>
<p>“Maybe Richie didn’t either,” Eddie groaned.</p>
<p>“Maybe,” Beverly shrugged, pulling away from the dress to try and catch Eddie’s gaze. He glanced from her bedroom window—dark clouds obscuring her backyard—to the poster on her wall—a horror movie Eddie had refused to see—before having to finally meet her gaze. “But Eddie, I think you were right when you said that he needed to come talk to you.” She paused to make him look her in the eye again. “Dude, you tried to talk to him! You can’t help him talk about what he’s feeling if he’s not going to.”</p>
<p>Eddie nodded slowly, allowing her words to settle for a moment. And weren’t they exactly what he’d been telling himself all week, just shared back to him in the voice of someone who loved him? He felt validated, overwhelmingly so.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Eddie nodded again. He had a lot to think about.</p>
<p>X</p>
<p>
  <em>Day 6 – Wednesday</em>
</p>
<p>The rain that had let up for a couple of hours was back with a vengeance. It was especially loud as it pelted the top of Mike’s pickup truck as they zoomed across town.</p>
<p>Eddie didn’t want to be alone anymore. Which was why he was currently on the way up to Hanlon farm for the evening. The ugly feeling of selfishness settled in his chest, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.</p>
<p>Eddie fiddled with the dials on the stereo system, until Mike pulled his attention back to him.</p>
<p>“Hey, you know you can talk to me if you want, right?”</p>
<p>Eddie weighed the words in his mind. Mike was a kind listener, and Eddie’s thoughts would be safe with him. And while a part of him was getting tired of rehashing his feelings, another bigger part of him was grateful to be heard.</p>
<p>“If I start talking now, I think I’ll just throw up a bunch of random shit until I cry,” Eddie finally said, feeling the honesty of his words.</p>
<p>Mike chuckled, turning the wheel of the truck. “Well, that’s not a bad thing.”</p>
<p>“I’m sick of crying,” Eddie grumbled sullenly.</p>
<p>“You can blame it on the stormy weather,” Mike said. “That it made you gloomy or something.”</p>
<p>“I wish,”</p>
<p>They listened to the radio and talked easily until the farmhouse was in view. He wasn’t even inside, yet he somehow already felt the comfort of the old, wooden home. He followed Mike’s lead across the muddy lawn and through the front door. Eddie declined a glass of something to drink and instead followed Mike into the living room. He bypassed the light switch, as muted light was still streaming in the windows despite the rain. Eddie appreciated the atmosphere, how it reflected how he felt inside.</p>
<p>They settled beside one another on the large couch. Eddie watched on as Mike kicked his feet up on the ottoman and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders.</p>
<p>Eddie glanced away from Mike and his knowing eyes. As the words bubbled up again in Eddie’s chest, he wanted to look at Mike’s sure features, but found himself looking anywhere but. Like at the royal blue fabric of the large couch he was currently occupying. Threads were loose and a layer of fuzz and lint covered the entire thing. And yet he much preferred it to the immaculate furniture in his own living room, a combination of his mother’s nauseating perfume and the stench of Pledge household cleaner clinging to everything.</p>
<p>“I’m sure you already know what’s wrong,” Eddie mumbled, picking at the lint on the armchair.</p>
<p>“I sort of do, I mean I’ve pieced things you’ve both said together. And Bill said some things,”</p>
<p>“I tried to talk to Bill earlier this week, but I ended up comforting him and feeling more lonely than ever,”</p>
<p>Mike laughed. “Yeah, Bill’s pretty upset about it all.”</p>
<p>“It doesn’t even involve him!”</p>
<p>“I guess not,” Mike shrugged. “But also, it kind of does. Like we don’t even all eat lunch together anymore, y’know?”</p>
<p>“It’s only been three days!” Eddie insisted.</p>
<p>“Yeah, but that’s longer than ever before, and there’s no sign of it getting better,” Eddie winced, making a face that caused Mike to backtrack. “I mean, like, for Bill.”</p>
<p>“For me, too,” Eddie sighed sadly.</p>
<p>“Is that what you want?” Mike worried his bottom lip between his teeth. It was evident he wanted to say more, that he’d thought over this extensively since it happened; that’s just how Mike was. He solved problems, but not with math or equations, instead with compassion and the loving ability of conversation.</p>
<p>“I just want him to talk to me first,” Eddie explained, feeling kind of stupid. “I just want him to tell me that we do want the same things.”</p>
<p>“I get that,” Mike nodded thoughtfully.</p>
<p>“I want him to take something serious for once in his life,” Eddie admitted a moment later. “I want to know that he’s capable, that he would want to,” Eddie paused, drawing all of his courage to add on, “y’know, for me.”</p>
<p>And whether he liked it or not, Eddie had just given Mike full view of everything rotting away inside of him. Not only the obvious love and adoration he held for Richie, but also the dark and chilling fears that hid behind his usual façade. The demons that Eddie tried so hard to ignore. Their large and looming presence. Eddie couldn’t ignore the weight they pressed on his chest, begging to be heard over the old drag of his heart. Even more so now that they had an audience.</p>
<p>“I would want that, too,” Mike spoke surely, a strong sense of understanding encased in his words. “It’s okay to want that,” Mike added quickly, the same sense of certainty in his voice.</p>
<p>Eddie wasn’t sure, but he felt surprisingly at ease knowing that somebody believed it; that even when he didn’t believe in himself, somebody did. Especially if that person was Mike fucking Hanlon.</p>
<p>“Why are you making that face?” Eddie asked when Mike’s face turned pensive.</p>
<p>“I guess I’m just wondering if maybe the others have it right and this is a breakup, at least for now.”</p>
<p>Eddie paused. He hadn’t really thought about it. Had everyone else? Had Richie? Is that what Richie wanted?</p>
<p>“Um, why?” Eddie asked slowly, the tone of his voice betraying him.</p>
<p>“I guess I just want to know if my two best friends are calling it quits,” Mike said, a sad look crossing his features.</p>
<p>“I haven’t even fucking thought about it,” Eddie admitted quickly, the words tumbling from his lips. “Did Richie say something?”</p>
<p>Eddie watched Mike’s face morph from sorrow to guilt to apprehension. “Not necessarily,”</p>
<p>“Well god fucking damnit,” Eddie cursed. “Something new to fucking worry about.”</p>
<p>“No!” Mike exclaimed, guilt laced in his every word. “No, no, no. That’s not what I meant. I haven’t asked him yet, so I don’t know!”</p>
<p>“Does everyone else think we’re broken up?” Eddie asked, his anxiety rising. How had he been so fucking stupid? Why hadn’t he considered this a possibility? This had just felt like a giant misunderstanding, an opportunity for Richie to be forced into sharing his emotions.</p>
<p>“Um,” Mike paused.</p>
<p>“Who?!”</p>
<p>“If you don’t think it’s a breakup then it doesn’t matter,” Mike said firmly, and Eddie wanted to believe him.</p>
<p>“I’m worried, because I was waiting on him, but what if he’s waiting on me? And then nothing ever gets solved and we just never talk again.”</p>
<p>Mike didn’t answer for a moment, and Eddie was grateful that Mike was taking it seriously. He was the first person to hold Eddie’s fears in his own hands without trying to fix them or mask them. Each of his friends had meant well—had been eager to love him—but this felt different. It wasn’t Bill’s fear or Ben’s desire to fix or Bev’s blind, casual surety.</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Mike finally said. “But I do know you and Richie. And I just don’t think that would happen.”</p>
<p>“God, Mikey, this is such a fucking mess,” Eddie laid his head back against the headrest of the couch. The yarn of a pastel blanket tickled the back of his neck from where it lay atop the couch. It smelled like Mike’s grandmother and their homemade cookies.</p>
<p>“If it’s any consolation, I think you’re doing the right thing,” Mike declared gently, causing Eddie to prop himself up and face Mike fully. His chest rose and fell as he demanded,</p>
<p>“Really?!”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Mike nodded, nothing but surety and affection etched onto his features. “You deserve to have Richie be honest with you, and in a really weird way you’re also helping him,”</p>
<p>“You really fucking mean that? You’re not just saying that?”</p>
<p>“Yeah, man,” Mike nodded. “I do.”</p>
<p>The rain had let up, Eddie noticed suddenly and belatedly as he turned towards the windows. The lacy cream drapes were pulled away from the windows, the large expansive farm stretching out as far as the eye could see. It was comforting; a million places to run and hide to. Without the pattering of rain, Mike’s living room wasn’t echoing anymore. Eddie could hear the whirring of the radiator and the sound of the washing machine down the hall.</p>
<p>“I better go,” Eddie stood up then. “Before it starts pouring again.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, probably a good idea,” Mike agreed, standing, too.</p>
<p>Together, they padded down the hallway and out the front door. Towards the side of the farmhouse sat Mike’s truck just as they left it. Mike jumped onto the right rear tire to grab Eddie’s bike from the bed of the truck. It was still dripping wet, much to Eddie’s chagrin. But when Mike offered to grab a towel from inside, Eddie declined. He was eager to get home and into bed, regardless of how wet his ass would be in the end.</p>
<p>“I hope it doesn’t rain until you’re home,” Mike said kindly and Eddie nodded his agreeance.</p>
<p>“Thanks for listening to me cry,”</p>
<p>“Anytime,” Mike promised, and Eddie could <em>feel</em> the sincerity of his words in his bones. Mike was brave and strong and hardworking and extremely talented. But he was also endlessly compassionate. And Eddie was sure he’d never be able to thank him enough. Not now or ever.</p>
<p>X</p>
<p>
  <em>Day 7 – Thursday </em>
</p>
<p>Richie hadn’t been in class, hadn’t been loud-mouthing somebody or singing loudly in the hallway with Beverly. His obnoxious car hadn’t been in the parking lot. And, both worst and best of all, all five of their friends were sitting together at their usual lunch table. Richie wasn’t at school.</p>
<p>“Where’s Richie?!” Eddie asked, approaching the lunch table and sliding into his seat. Richie rarely missed school; Maggie would drag him herself if she needed to. She had before; eighth grade had been rough for everyone.</p>
<p>“Nobody’s heard from him,” Mike answered for the group. He had a happy smile across his features, and while it was always welcome it was off-setting.</p>
<p>“He doesn’t just miss school, though,” Eddie pressed. “Someone should go check on him.”</p>
<p>“Should we draw straws,” Beverly teased.</p>
<p>“Nuh-not a b-bad idea,” Bill nodded, clearly missing the sarcastic joke in Bev’s voice.</p>
<p>“If you’re so worried, it should be you,” Stan spoke up, glancing up only briefly from the large textbook in his lap. Eddie wondered, half-heartedly, if Stan had a test that afternoon, or maybe a presentation; Eddie hadn’t talked to the other all week. Stan’s fierce and unfaltering loyalty didn’t lie with Eddie, it seemed. Or maybe Richie had told a lie about Eddie, about how the entire situation was Eddie’s fault. Or maybe Richie had just needed Stan more.</p>
<p>“I can’t,” Eddie said simply, glancing down at his own lap, though his was empty beside his hands. They were dry, the lotion in his backpack not strong enough for the foaming soap in the high school restrooms. And Eddie had washed his hands excessively since Richie had been missing.</p>
<p>“He’s probably just sick,” Ben said, before biting into his cafeteria chicken patty sandwich. It looked kind of soggy, and so Eddie had to look away.</p>
<p>“Richie hates being sick,” Eddie reminded the Losers. “So, I say again, someone should go check on him.”</p>
<p>Mike and Bill exchanged a look that Eddie wanted to ignore, so he shoved it to the back of his mind.</p>
<p>“Why is no one taking this serious?!” Eddie asked after a beat of silence, frustrated at the other Losers unwillingness to check on Richie.</p>
<p>“It’s probably just a cold,” Beverly shrugged. “There’s nothing we could do for that, but if it’ll make you feel better, Eds, maybe we could go over there tog-”</p>
<p>Anger flooded Eddie’s system. “No! Beverly, you know I can’t just go over there! We haven’t talked in a week! I’m not going to just come over uninvited when this whole mess is going on!”</p>
<p>“I think this would be a great opportunity to maybe talk,” Beverly was gentle yet firm, her voice and features schooled into her classic calming comfort. Eddie almost wanted to listen, which was why she used the voice at all, Eddie knew.</p>
<p>“Fuck no,” Eddie grumbled, finally reaching into his backpack to pull out his lunch. Although he didn’t much feel like eating. His stomach was unsettled, and worry flooded his system, his hands feeling shaky.</p>
<p>(Because a cold could lead to bronchitis or an asthma attack without proper medication. And Richie hated taking medication, needed persuading and prompting. But what if it wasn’t a cold at all? Multiple strains of the flu had been going around Derry High. Would Richie know to drink enough water to stay hydrated? If not, he’d need to be taken to the hospital and put on IV. And)</p>
<p>“That’s okay, Eddie,” Mike seemed to sense Eddie’s rising discomfort. He reached over and placed a warm and firm hand on Eddie’s shoulder, rubbing small circles there. “I’ll call him later and see if everything’s okay.”</p>
<p>Eddie nodded gratefully, staring down at his uneaten lunch. The other Losers began chatting again; Bill hated his English teacher, Mike’s cows had been uncooperative that morning and Beverly had to work a double that coming Saturday. The conversation happened around Eddie, the words swirling around him but not taking root.</p>
<p>It was time to get used to this new normal, Eddie chided himself. If Richie was sick, it was up to the others to check in on him. He couldn’t bother himself worrying.</p>
<p>(And he had to start fucking sleeping at night; had to unlearn being cuddled to sleep.)</p>
<p>He picked at the food that still sat before him. The carrots looked too slimy. Peanut butter oozed out the sides of his sandwich. And although his mother would be happy about the lukewarm temperature of his water<em>—"cold water is hard on your teeth and stomach, Eddie-bear!”—</em>Eddie hated drinking it that way.</p>
<p>So he didn’t. Instead, he glanced around the table until his heart ached. This was the first time his five best friends had eaten lunch together all week. His selfishness and inability to be close to Richie without touching had led to others suffering. Mike and Ben were joking, Stan snorted at Bill’s goofiness and Beverly kept everything interesting. They belonged together. Eddie knew that.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Eddie chocked out, effectively silencing his friends. His throat felt too dry and he grasped his hand around air unable to grab at his water bottle. Mike located it quickly, pressing it to Eddie’s lips. He gulped it down before pulling away and giving Mike a look of gratitude.</p>
<p>“Did you say something?” Mike asked.</p>
<p>“Yeah, uh,” Eddie looked back down at the unappetizing food in front of him. “I’m sorry, y’know, about this week.”</p>
<p>“It’s ok-okay, Eds,” Bill spoke first, his easy smile alight on his face. He was still slamming his shoulder into a whining Stan, so the entire situation was still guilt-ridden for Eddie.</p>
<p>“We didn’t mind,” Beverly assured him next. “We’re not a very obedient group, we wouldn’t have done it if we didn’t want to.”</p>
<p>“Mostly, we didn’t think it’d last this long,” Stan added, though he got elbowed by both Bill and Mike. “Oh, <em>what the fuck?!</em>”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to be split up anymore,” Eddie murmured, unsure if his friends could hear him over the noisy cafeteria. “You guys don’t deserve it.”</p>
<p>“You’re guh-guh-gonna talk to him?!” Bill perked up, eyes full of hope. Eddie closed his eyes, as the image was too much. He wanted to talk to Richie; he wanted to patch it all up. But he’d given up hope. He’d given Richie a week, and he still hadn’t made a move to repair what they’d had before.</p>
<p>“No,” Eddie shook his head. “Richie walked out; he’s gotta walk back in.”</p>
<p>And even though it hurt like hell, there was nothing else Eddie could do.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I’m so sorry for how sad this chapter ended! Be patient with me while I get chapter three finalized and published. I promise these boys are soulmates and will work it out. Feelings are hard, goddamnit!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading. Please let me know what you thought. Reviews make my day. Also, go stream Walls by Louis Tomlinson. Thank you!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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